Akatsuki Concoctions
by xXTSUKImono17Xx
Summary: The Akatsuki get some strange visitors, and guess who one of them is, DeiDei's big sis! trust me, they're definitally NOT marry sue's What tomfoolery shall they get up to? Magical wonders to behold when you enter.HidanxOC PeinxKonan
1. Some Rogue Nins

**This is a story that I wrote on a whim. It's probably crack, but I hope it will be enjoyable and not a waste of your time. I know that it's slow I first, but I promise it will get better.**

**All characters- Masashi Kishimoto, for the 10,000****th**** time.**

**Three OC's and lots of OOC-ness.**

**This is my first fanfic, so be nice. Here we go:**

A warm, gentle breeze ran through the leaves in the forest, making them rustle softly. Nothing disturbed the silence, save for the occasional chirping of the birds.

The three missing Rock village nin sat together quietly near a small pond, recuperating from there long journey. The one male in the group, Damu, had black hair with several red streaks in it, was the first to break the long, comfortable silence.

"I'M BORED!" Damu exclaimed.

Nenriki, the second member of the group stopped playing with her long silver hair long enough to answer with a scowl, "We know you're bored, you can never just sit quietly and be content, can you?"

"So I don't like to be lazy, unlike some people who just lay around praying to their damned god all day long" he replied.

"At least I have a god, unlike you, you Atheist." Nenriki spat, gripping her rosary around her neck.

"Shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

"No, you!"

"You first!"

Finally, Kitsune, the third and by the far the most intelligent member of the trio looked up from mixing different types of roots and liquids together. "Do you guys mind? I'm trying to work on my invention, and if you guys can't keep quiet, I'll use this serum to shut the both of you up for good." She said with a maniacal grin, strands of her dark blond hair framing her face, the rest of it tied up on a ponytail on the top of her head. However, she was quickly distracted as her "invention" started to make small, strangely scented puffs.

The two nins quickly stopped squabbling, knowing that while Kitsune's many inventions and concoctions didn't work properly, they were still dangerous because they often exploded, also, she didn't make many empty threats.

"I'm still bored. I wish we never left Iwa. I miss it already."

"Geez, Damu, we've only been on the run for a week. You're such a girl."

"_Your mom's _such a girl."

"Well, I sure hope so."

"Shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

Kitsune started rubbing her temples, and the two's childish shouts receded once again when they notice her imaginary warning light blinking.

Damu cleared is throat, and what was in what he hoped to be a respectful tone of voice, calmly asked Kitsune, "So, what do we do now that we can't go back to Iwa?"

"I don't know," she replied, in barely more than a whisper, "we don't know anything about how to even be rough ninja, not to mention we're all the way in Konoha. It would be so much easier if we had… some one to learn from."

"You're nor seriously considering…_him_"

"Yeah, I am." Kitsune replied, putting her concoction away and shouldering her small pack. "Guys, gather your things, we're going to pay a visit to my lil' bro."


	2. The Intro

**Here it is, Ch. 2**

**Hope you enjoy. All characters- Kishimoto**

The Akatsuki hideout was alive with mayhem, what with Tobi having of just stole Deidara's clay, some of Hidan's hair gel, and Kakuzu's beloved calculator.

"Tobi, I swear to Jashin, I will sacrifice you if you don't fuckin' give back my damn hair gel!"

"Tobi is a good boy! Sasori-san told Tobi last night that he _needed_ this stuff." Tobi shouted over his shoulder narrowly missing running into a wall.

"Sasori's dead, smart one. Just because you wet your bed from nightmares of his ghost haunting the hideout doesn't mean that he's real, un!"

"B-but, Sempai, he _is_ real. Tobi saw him with his own eye!"

"What the hell would he want with some clay, hair gel, and a calculator, un?"

"I don't know, Sempai maybe for his pup- ARGH!" Tobi was cut of as he tripped over Kakuzu, who was curled up in a ball on the ground rocking back and forth and looking as if he was on the verge of tears, and mumbling something about his beloved money. Tobi did a miraculous face plant onto the floor, and the goods he was carrying went flying and landed on the floor with a loud clatter and finally skidded to a halt.

Deidara and Hidan went to claim their possessions, while Kakuzu however, reached out his desperate hand and squealed in fear that his baby might have been harmed. Making no effort to try to get up, Hidan went took the calculator and gave to the old miser. Kakuzu quickly snatched it away and held it in a tight embrace. "It's ok, daddy's here, daddy's here. Soon you will be _filled_ with numbers, and I will press your additions button again, and again, and _again_. Daddy's got you, shhhhhh, it's ok."

Hidan looked as though he might be sick, and Tobi started to giggle.

Meanwhile, Itachi, Kisame, and Zetsu were sitting on the couch watching a documentary on sharks, trying to ignore the racket the others were making. Itachi was leaning against the armrest, head resting on his propped up hand, looking bored, since he could hardly see the T.V. anyway. Zetsu, on the opposite side, was looking hungrily at Itachi. While Kisame, in the middle, was looking lustfully at the T.V. screen.

"Oh yeah, I'd tap that one. Oh yes. Just look at those jaws, and that dorsal fin! Hmmm."

Itachi and Zetsu both got up and started to back away slowly out of the room.

In the other room most of the Akatsuki members were quietly chatting over things like rituals, plant food, Oreos, pumpkins, and money, although Deidara was sitting quietly in his emo corner, head resting against his knees, wishing he had some one to argue about art with.

"Hidan-san where are Konan-san and Pein-sama?" Tobi asked cheerfully.

"Probably alone somewhere bumpin' uglies." Hidan replied with a smirk.

"Deidara-sempai, what does 'bumping uglies' mean?" Tobi asked, just as cheerfully.

"Wha-?" Deidara asked, lifting his head up from his knees. "Ummm, it means they're…um… wrestling, un."

"Oh, ok sempai, do you want to 'bump uglies' later?

Hidan fell off his chair in laughter, and Deidara was about to hit Tobi, when the doorbell rang. (Let's say that the Akatsuki have a door and a doorbell for the sake of the fanfic.)

"I'LL GET IT, un!" Yelled Deidara, eager to get away from the rather embarrassing situation, ran to the door and quickly opened it. (Let's also say that the Akatsuki don't care about security n' whatnot.)

Deidara was greeted with being tackled to the ground and he gasped as the wind was knocked out of him. When the shock wore off, he quickly grabbed for a kunai, but his hand stopped when he caught a glimpse of the person currently pinning him to the ground.

"Holy shit, un"

"LIL' BRO!"

"Long time no see, Deidara-kun."

"Dei-chan!"

Deidara let out a long groan, leaning his head back and hitting it against the ground. Hidan, Kakuzu, Tobi, Itachi, Zetsu, and Kisame, who was still in a good mood from his "shark porn" all rushed into the room when they heard the commotion. When they saw the strange folk appearing as if they were trying to kill Deidara, they all drew their weapons, except for Itachi.

"Kisame-san, what's going on? I can't see anything. Is somebody trying to smex Deidara?

"Itachi-san, go finish your ice cream in the other room."

"Ok Kisame-san." Itachi tried to leave, but ran into the door as it opened, revealing Pein and Konan, both of their hair disheveled, and Pein was limping. Itachi let out a small moan before he collapsed on the floor, twitching slightly. Pein and Konan simply stepped over him, not even bothering to look down.

"Pein-sama, why are you limping?"

"Oh, um, we…ah…," Pein stuttered, "Tried something different when we were… ah…"

"Wrestling?" Tobi finished.

"Wrestl- sure, why not?" Konan said

"On a more important note, what the hell is going on in here?" Pein asked, glancing at the newcomers and Deidara, who was trying to pry a young woman off of him.

The other girl with long silver hair was the one to answer him. "We've come to pay a little visit to Dei-chan, who is my friend's baby sister."

"I'm a man, damnit, un!" Deidara exclaimed, finally succeeding in prying his sister off of him.

"Keep telling yourself that, Dei-chan. And- hey, you still talking in that weird way?"

"What weird way? Un."

"That weird way, how you add 'un' to the end of every frickin' sentence."

"I do not! Un."

"Yes you do! _UN_!"

"Stop that, un."

"No you stop, _Un_!"

"Geez, you're still as annoying as you were when you were a kid!"

"You're still as immature, and you're older than me, un."

"Damn strait I'm older than you!"

"God you're so damn stu-"

The lone male in the trio, who had spiky red and black hair, loudly cleared his throat and spoke up. "I think my clinically insane partner here is getting ahead of herself a bit." He said, glaring at the silver-haired kunoichi. "My name's Damu, the crazy one here is Nenriki, and Dei's sister's name is Kitsune.

"Ok, that's great," Konan said, "but why do you need to see Deidara-san, and more importantly, how did you find us? This is a hidden hideout."

"Well, we needed to see Dei, here," explained Damu, nodding towards Deidara, "because we just recently became rough ninjas, and we needed something to do, considering the fact that we're total noobs at this."

"And we found him because of this thing I made." Kitsune interrupted, pulling out a small electrical contraption that looked somewhat like a remote control, with a large antenna sticking out the front. "It corresponds to a small microchip I placed inside of my little brother's ass when he was ten. It enables me to track the approximate location of him wherever he may be. I originally made it when he lost control of his clay bird when he was little, and it flew him into an entire different shinobi nation. It was very difficult to find him, so then implanted this so I could get his approximate location on this screen," Finished Kitsune, showing them all the small screen on the remote.

"Keyword in this is _approximate_." Nenriki added, with a particular emphasis on the word approximate.

"Yeah," Damu interrupted, "The last three secret hideouts were _very_ rude."

"Wait, so Deidara-sempai has a chocolate chip in is bottom?" Tobi asked quizzically.

"Not chocolate chip, _microchip_, Tobi." Kisame said, rolling his eyes and finally moving to pick up Itachi who was still twitching on the floor, and a small red bump slowly growing on his head.

"Yeah, that damn thing still itches down there, un." Deidara mumbled, rubbing his tush in the process.

"Well, since they _are _your relatives and friends, Deidara-san," Pein said with a sigh, "I guess they can stay for a _few_ days, but no longer than that, understood."

"Got it."

"Of course."

"Totally."

"Deidara-san, I think that you are more than capable of showing your sister and her friends to our spare guest bedrooms."

"Yeah, follow me, un." Deidara said, nodding towards the newcomers.

"This is going to be an interesting week, isn't it?" Damu asked, after a long, akward silence.

"Every week is interesting when you're with the Akatsuki, un"


	3. A Sticky Situation

**Ch. 3- Sticky situation**

**All character-Kishimoto **

**Here we go again:**

* * *

It was a quiet Sunday morning in the Akatsuki hideout. All were asleep, save for Deidara, who was still thinking about the previous day's events. His big sister, Kitsune, who he hadn't seen in over four years, had appeared out of nowhere to visit him. She claimed that she and her two best friends were missing nins, for reasons still unknown to him, and needed something to do, because they didn't know how to be missing nins.

When he still lived in Iwa, he and his sister always got along, and Damu was pretty cool, despite the fact that he had almost no brains. Nenriki, however, had always scared him, especially after she had tried to sacrifice him to her crazy god when he was seven. Fortunately, Kitsune had rescued him and gave quite a beating to her friend. Despite this, he had to admit, after being a missing nin for over four years, it was those three people that he missed the most.

His sister was a genius. She was always inventing new potions, ranging from new energy drinks to love potions to poisons. While some of these were a success, sadly enough, they usually ended up the same way, with half the house blown up and Kitsune walking around the next week without eyebrows. Despite Kitsune's usual disappointment at another failed experiment, one positive thing had arisen from these mishaps; they had sparked Deidara's own interest in explosions. They were so destructive, and happened so fast, and yet they had a certain beauty to them that he couldn't even describe.

Deidara was so lost in thought that he almost didn't hear the commotion going on in the hallway on the other side of his door. As he got out bed and ran to open the door, he also noticed that Tobi's bed next to his in the room they shared was empty.

"Tobi, what could you be getting up to this early in the morning. You usually don't start making want to kill you until _after_ I've had my coffee." Deidara mumbled to himself.

As he opened the door and looked down the hallway, he saw Tobi, Damu, and Nenriki running down the hallway at full ninja speed.

"Help! Help! Deidara-sempai, it's Sasori-san's ghost again! It's haunting the hideout!"

"I saw him too! He told us that he's going to turn us into puppets!" Damu screeched.

"Oh God! Save me Ja –" but she was cut off as she crashed right into Hidan, who was standing next to Kakuzu, who both shared a room adjacent to Deidara's. They also heard the commotion and came out just like Deidara.

"Hey, watch where you're running, dumb bitch!"

"How about _you _watch where _I'm_ running, asstard!" Nenriki tried to get up to walk away, having forgotten about the ghost, but couldn't on account of the tugging around her neck. She looked down to see that her rosary was caught on Hidan.

"Hey assface, get your damn necklace off of my rosary!" Nenriki spat.

"It's not a necklace; it's a genuine Jashinist rosary, dumb fuck!" Hidan retorted with a scowl.

"Seriously, wait, then that means you're a Jashinist?"

"No shit, Sherlock. What's it to you? It's not like it's any of your damn buisne –" but he stopped when he saw the rosaries still intertwined were the same. "Holy shit, you're one too."

"Yeah, I am."

"…"

"…"

"Wanna do a ritual together, Nenriki-san?" Hidan asked, with a small smile on his face.

Nenriki blushed, "Uh… um…ah, sure, why not?" She replied sheepishly.

They both got up and started walking away, talking rapidly about the pros and cons of Jashinism.

"Well, that was weird." Kakuzu commented.

"And fast, un." Deidara replied.

* * *

Kakuzu and Deidara were the first to the breakfast table, but were soon joined by Kisame, Itachi, Konan, and Pein. Zetsu always ate elsewhere, Hidan and Nenriki were still doing their ritual, Kitsune was still in her room experimenting, and Damu and Tobi were still nowhere to be found.

Kisame sat down next to Itachi, eating his Fishy Flakes cereal, while Itachi ate his Sharingan O's. (Or semi-colons, I could never really tell what those things were inside of his eyes.) Deidara made pancakes and piled whipped cream and strawberries on top, then quickly shoved them down his throat; eager to see what is big sister was up to. Konan sat on Pein's lap while he drank his coffee and read his newspaper, which only known to Konan, concealed a Death Note manga book.

"Hmmm, twelve secret agents just died of mysterious heart attacks, very strange, very strange indeed." Pein commented, half to himself.

Deidara, having finished his breakfast before anyone else, quickly cleared his place at the table and headed toward his sister's room, eager to see what she was up to. When he reached the door to the guest bedroom, he knocked tentatively. The one most important thing his sister had ever taught him was that you always, _always_, knock before you enter a girls' room. If you don't the consequences could be dire.

"Come in."

Deidara slowly opened the door and walked in, revealing a room with black walls and red clouds painted on them. How cliché. He saw his sister sitting at the small desk in the room, wearing safety goggles. She was carefully measuring ingredients and adding them into a beaker.

"What's up?" Kitsune asked with a smile on her face, after seeing who it was.

"Just wanting to see what you were up to, un."

"Oh, well then, in that case, I'm just working on my home-made sex lube." She said with a serious look on her face.

"BIG SIS, THAT'S GROSS, UN!" Deidara said, eyes bulging.

Kitsune's face split into a wide grin, "Just kidding, just kidding, lil' bro. Geez, can't take a joke, can you? But no, seriously, I'm working on a simple hair conditioner solution for extra silky smooth hair." Kitsune said, still suppressing giggles.

"Oh, thank god. I though you grew up to be a pervert, or something, un. Well, don't you want any breakfast? I made pancakes, un.

"Ooooooh, you remember me well, Dei. Pancakes were always my one weakness. I'll be there in a minute, just let me add one more ingredient." Kitsune said, starting to drool. Unfortunately, she was so busy thinking about pancakes that she didn't realize that she grabbed the root from a birch tree, instead of that of a cherry tree. She quickly threw the root into the solution, removed her goggles, and ran for the door, eager to devour the delicious delicacy that was a pancake. However, before she even reach the door, her would-be conditioner started making large, green puffs of smoke and shooting loud, bright sparks out of the top.

"Oh"

"Crap"

They both said, recognizing the oh-too-familiar symptoms. Knowing what was about to happen, they both screamed and hugged each other tightly.

KABOOM!!!!!!!!

Deidara and Kitsune lay on the ground together on their backs, unharmed, but still in shock. Like the rest of the room, they were covered in a thick, green, sticky, slime. Deidara rolled his head to face Kitsune, and Kitsune did the same. They stared at each other, wide-eyed for several seconds, then, they both started busting up in hysterical laughter.

The rest of Akatsuki, including Nenriki and Hidan, still bloody from their ritual, and Tobi and Damu, who had been hiding in a closet, having had heard the blast, quickly rushed into the room, concern etched on most of their faces. However, with the room being coated with a thick layer of slime, they all slipped and fell hard onto the floor. Various moans and groans were heard, and failed attempts to get up were made, but loudest of all, was the reinforced laughter being made by Deidara and Kitsune. And soon, all the others joined in. Even Itachi displayed a small, rare smile on his face.

As they finally calmed themselves down and started to get up, they noticed something strange, something very strange indeed. You see, Deidara had grabbed Kitsune's hand to help her up, and Hidan had done the same for Nenriki, Itachi had landed on top of Kakuzu, with his foot on the bottom of his neck, Konan landed with her arm around Kisame's shoulders, and Pein and Zetsu had landed back to back. While Tobi and Damu were ended up on opposite sides of the room, and had gotten up successfully. Unfortunately for the others, they were having trouble moving on account of the fact that seemed to be glued together.

"Hidan-san, I'm honored, but please let go of my hand." Nenriki said, blushing furiously.

"I…can't…I'm…stuck." Hidan said, speaking between attempts to pry his hand from his fellow Jashinist.

"Kisame-san, you've got three seconds to explain as to why the hell you've got your arm around my lover."

"Don't you mean wrestling partner, Pein-sama?" Tobi piped up.

"Tobi?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"Ok."

"Kitsune, what the hell is this stuff?

"Well, it was supposed to be conditioner, but it apparently turned into something closer to superglue. Hey, Deidara, did you by any chance see what that last ingredient I added was?"

"Yeah, I think I do, un." He said, getting up with Kitsune, walking hand in hand to the small desk across the room. "I think it was that type of root, un." He said, pointing to a small pile of roots with his available left hand.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no! Crap, crap, crap! We're so screwed!"

"What? What is it? Why is this so bad, un?!"

"I must have accidentally added birch tree root instead of the cherry tree root. When a birch root is mixed with some of the particular ingredients that were in my conditioner, it causes the atoms to transfer electrons, forming incomprehensibly strong ionic bonds. This means we're stuck together." She quickly added, noticing the many confused looks. "Luckily, it's only adhesive to skin, so our clothes aren't sticky. I've worked with this before. You wouldn't remember Dei, but I did something similar to this many years back when I was just randomly experimenting. I accidentally glued a man's hand to the side of a tree." Kitsune said, growing visibly paler by the second.

"Who was the man, un?"

"Remember one-handed Hitari?'

Deidara gulped visibly.

"How could you make such a Jashin damned careless mistake as to mix up the roots you were adding? You know how your concoctions can turn out!" Nenriki yelled, throwing her hands up in the air, ripping Hidan's arm up with it.

"Shut up! I was…um…uh…"

"YES?!"

"Thinking about pancakes." Kitsune mumbled.

"Kitsune?"

"Yeah?"

"You have got to be the stupidest smart person I have ever met."

"I know Nenriki, I know."

"Hey, wait a minute; I guess we lucked out, huh Damu? We aren't stuck together like the others!"

"Yeah! High five for being lucky!"

"NOOOOOOOOO" Everyone seemed to yell at the same time.

Their hands seemed to hit in slow motion. Damu was still wearing a celebratory grin and we can only guess that Tobi was doing the same, until they realized that since Tobi had sacrificed his gloves to "Sasori-san's ghost," their hands were now stuck together. They were now in the same boat as everyone else.

"Tobi? Damu?"

"Yeah?" They both answered together.

"You guys have got to be the stupidest stupid people I have ever met."

"We know."

**There's chapter 3, hope you enjoyed! please review!!!**

**Ps. I know that the chapter title is very cliché, I can't do titles. Please don't hurt me!**


	4. The Ultimatum

**Chapter 4- The Ultimatum **

**Please review!! Notice how I mixed up the pairs, and didn't just keep them like KisaIta or DeiTobi. Tell me what you think.**

**All characters-Kishimoto**

**Hope you enjoy. Here we go:**

* * *

So, there they were, in Kitsune's room, all stuck together in one way or another. Three pairs were hand in hand, one was back to back, one had an arm around the other, but no pair was in as bad of a situation as Itachi's and Kakuzu's. The only way that they could stand up was by Kakuzu standing up, and Itachi dangling upside-down by his ankle from Kakuzu's neck. It was quite painful for the both of them, not to mention it looked very awkward.

"I swear stitch-man, what are the odds that the one time you don't have your cloak and mask on, we all get covered in superglue that only sticks to skin? I mean, come on!" Itachi said; face beginning to turn red due to the fact that he was hanging upside-down.

"I don't wanna hear it! I'm the one that has to carry you around all day until Kitsune-chan can come up with a solvent to this sticky mess. It's a good thing you're the smallest member of Akatsuki! The only reason that you're not ripping my skin off is because I have to hold on to you with some of my tentacles!" Kakuzu shouted back, his face growing red due to anger.

"Which is _very_ creepy, by the way!"

"My tentacles aren't creepy. They're just different!"

"They are _so_ creepy! I've killed for so much less than this and I'll damn sure do it again!"

"You couldn't kill me if you tried, Uchiha!"

"I will fuckin' Sharingan your sorry ass into the next dimension!"

"Itachi-san please calm down, I'm sure that Kitsune-san has a solution that can get us out of this mess." Kisame said, knowing the dangers of the small, yet powerful shinobi.

"Shhhh, be quiet Kisame-san, let em' fight, I'd like to see the Uchiha kill Kakuzu." Hidan whispered in Kisame's ear, with a smirk on his evil (yet oh so smexy) face.

Nenriki, who was close enough to hear this, started to giggle, covering her available right hand over her mouth.

Deidara cleared his throat, "You _do_ have a solution to this, don't you, Kitsune, un?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, maybe?" Kitsune said, with a shifty gaze. "I mean, I tried for weeks when I stuck Hitari's hand to that tree, but I could never find an adequate solution. However, that was years ago, when I didn't have as much experience with this type of stuff. I'll give it my best shot, but even if I do get it right, it'll definitely take awhile to perfect. My advice is to go about your regular business the best you can until it's ready." Kitsune said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

"How the hell am I supposed to 'go about my business' with Weasel-chan here stuck to my back?" Kakuzu complained, pointing to said weasel.

"Hey! I don't appreciate-"

"Shut it Uchiha."

"As the Akatsuki Leader, I command you to have this ready in one week, or so help me I will make things very uncomfortable for all three of you." Pein said, pointing to the three guests.

"What are you gonna do?" Nenriki asked skeptically, clearly not knowing the full extent of the Leader's powers.

"I'll give you a hint. It's three words, it starts will 'I'll," and it ends with 'ill you.'"

"Ah. Now I see." Nenriki said, growing paler than she already had been.

"B-but Pein-sama, they're our guests, you wouldn't go and betray our hospitality just like that, un. Would you, un?" Deidara said, hopefully.

"What kind of guests freakin' glues their hosts together?"

"Ah, touché, un."

"I'm sure that our new guest will be able to get us unstuck before the time limit is up." Zetsu commented.

"**If not, we can just 'dispose' of her after Pein-sama deals with her." **The other, creepier (and cooler) Zetsu added.

"Well, if I know Kitsune like I think I do, she likes to work alone in silence. So I believe all of us, save for Deidara, of course, should be on our way and leave her to do her thing." Nenriki said, heading towards the door with Hidan.

They all departed, save for Pein and Zetsu who were glued together.

"Remember Kitsune- ah, hold on. Zetsu, please turn around."

They slowly shuffled their feet to turn around so Pein was face to face with Kitsune and Deidara.

"What was I saying? Oh yes- remember Kitsune-chan, one week, and one week only. Deidara-san, I trust you are capable of keeping her on task, because if you're not, I might 'accidentally' hurt you in the process of ending your sister." Pein said in a serious tone, yet a small, almost invisible smile was on his face when he said "accidentally."

And without another word, Pein and Zetsu headed for the door, although, due to Zetsu's size, it was rather awkward for the both of them to squeeze through the door. After much pushing and grunting, they left Deidara and Kitsune alone in the room to contemplate their fate if they were unsuccessful.

"Hey, Dei?'

"Yeah, un.?"

"What did Zetsu mean when he said 'dispose' of me?"

"Oh, that means he's going to eat you, un." He said matter-of-factly. "He will tear you apart limb from limb and devour your entire body."

"Oh... ok."

There was a long silence, during which Kitsune had to hold back her tears.

"Deidara, I am _so_ sorry for getting you into this mess. I shouldn't have put my little brother in this position, especially with your boss." Kitsune said, burying her head in her hand.

"It's ok, really, un." Deidara said with as much sincerity as he could muster. "Besides," he added, "I may still be younger than you, but I'm not a little kid anymore. I've grown up a lot and I can take care of myself pretty well, un." He finished, trying to put his arm around his older sibling, but only succeeded in going into a position that only double jointed people should do.

Then, Kitsune started to giggle softly, and was soon joined by Deidara.

"Lil' bro?"

"Yeah, un?"

"Thanks."

"Welcome, un."

"…"

"Well," Kitsune said, after a long silence, "we better be gettin' started soon, if we want to meet Pein-sama's deadline."

"Yeah, un."

* * *

**IN THE LIVING ROOM**

The Akatsuki members were back to talking about random things, most sitting in _very_ awkward positions, when suddenly, a strange realization came to Hidan.

"Hey, everyone! Anyone see where Tobi and Damu ran off to?" Hidan asked, scanning the room.

"Um, I think I saw them heading towards Deidara and Tobi's room." Konan, the lone female answered.

"Ugh, I'm getting worried about them, with them hallucinating about Sasori's ghost and all. Tobi is probably rubbing off on Damu more than is safe." Hidan said, clearly annoyed.

"Hey now! There's just no way that I'd be having the same hallucination as those two idiots!" Nenriki yelled, stomping her foot.

"Oh, yeah, sorry baby- uh, I mean, Nenriki-san." Hidan said sheepishly, blushing like mad. "It's probably just the wind, or something. I mean, Sasori's ghost can't really exist, can it?" Hidan asked, hopefully.

"Yeah, I guess, I-I suppose you're right." She said, wanting to believe what Hidan said.

Hidan let out a sigh of relief, but not at the fact that Sasori's ghost probably wasn't real.

When they reached Tobi and Deidara's room they heard hushed whispering from within. Not even bothering to knock (They weren't girls, after all) they slowly opened the door to reveal Tobi and Damu rummaging through drawers and cabinets, throwing out their contents at random. When they heard footsteps, they quickly stopped what they were doing and stared at each other.

"Damnit Tobi! I thought I told you to lock the door."

"I was, but Tobi forgot."

"I- yeah, I probably would have forgotten to too." Damu said rubbing the back of his head and blushing.

"Tobi, Damu what the hell are you guys doing in here? Deidara is gonna be pissed when he sees what you did to his room" Hidan said.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone, ok? Damu whispered.

"Ok, fine, whatever. So, what _are_ you guys doing in here?"

Damu sighed, and opened his mouth to answer. "We were looking for clues, so we could prove that Sasori's ghost was real. Tobi thought that there might be some of Sasori's old stuff left in here, since he used to share this room with Deidara." Damu winced, expecting to get hit or yelled, as usual, for having such a stupid idea. Neither happened.

"Well?" Hidan asked.

"Well, what?" Tobi asked back, clearly confused.

"Well, have you found anything?" Hidan elaborated.

"Ah- no, we haven't. Not a single scrap of clothing or a sliver of a puppet." Damu replied.

"Didn't think so. We threw out all of Sasori's old stuff to make room for you, Tobi."

"Dang. Tobi was hoping that he and Damu-kun could use something of his to lure him out, or prove that he was real."

"Well," Damu said, clapping his hands together, earning a surprised grunt from Tobi as his hand was pulled with his, "we made quite a mess in here, so we should better clean up if there's nothing more we can do in here."

They all helped clean up, putting clothes back in their drawers, Tobi's toys back in the boxes, and Deidara's hair care products back in the cabinets.

"Hey, Tobi! Does this shirt go in this closet?" Damu asked.

"Yeah, Damu, just hang it up, right over there."

"Ok. Now I just need to find a hang- Ah!"

"A-a hangah? Don't you mean hanger?"

"No, ugh, the floorboard just came loose and I stepped in it. Now my foot's stuck, damn it all!" Damu said, wincing because the pain in his foot.

"Ok, no problem. We'll just all pull you out at once and you'll come right out." Hidan said calmly.

They all grabbed onto Damu's right arm, which was the one still attached to Tobi.

"Ok, ready Damu? One, two, three, pull!"

With the combined strength of the four nin, Damu's foot came out easily. In fact, they were so strong that they were all sent flying across the room, along with some of the floorboard and some things that Damu's foot had picked up. Some of these things were a mesh shirt, some wire, and a bottle filled with a mysterious purple liquid. All of which landed on top of Damu's head.

"OW, that hurt. Huh- what is this stuff?"

"No way!" Hidan exclaimed. "You guys found it."

"Found what?" Nenriki asked.

"Sasori's things. This here is the shirt he wore when he wasn't in Hiruko, this is some of the coil from his stomach, and this here is the poison he used to put in his puppets." Hidan said, not a moment too soon, considering that Damu was about to drink a drop of the liquid to see what it was. He quickly put the bottle back on the ground with a shifty gaze on his face. "I don't know how it'll help you guys do anything about your ghost issues, even if it did exist, but I had always wondered where Sasori-san kept all of his stuff."

"Well, it's a start. Come on Tobi, let's go look at this stuff closer in my room closer." Damu said, trying to get up, but immediately falling back down. "Ow, ow, ow! I-I think I hurt my foot." He said looking down, gasping when he saw his pants slowly turning red with blood.

"Oh, wow. That looks painful. C'mon, let's go take you to Zetsu. He's pretty good with basic injuries." Hidan said.

"It's ok, Hidan-san, Tobi will take him himself." Tobi said cheerfully.

"Whatever. Just leave the stuff here. You can come back for it after you fix up Damu.

Tobi and Damu headed towards Zetsu's (and Pein's) room, Damu with a slight limp.

"That was really weird." Damu said, with his eyebrow furrowed.

"Yeah, what are the odds that we'd find Sasori's stuff like that?"

"Well, that too, but I was talking about Nenriki."

"What about her?" Tobi asked.

"Well, normally, she hits me or yells at me for doing stupid stuff, swears constantly, and never stops talking. However, she was strangely silent when she was with us." Damu said, barely speaking above a whisper.

"Yeah, Hidan is usually just like you described Nenriki as, but he didn't cuss at all, in fact, he was almost… nice." Tobi said, confusion in his voice.

They walked in silence for some time before a thought suddenly came to Damu's head.

"Ya know what I think it is?" He said to Tobi. When Tobi didn't reply, he continued. "I noticed that Nenriki and Hidan couldn't stop looking at each other. Also, they were blushing a lot." Damu went on, a smile growing on his face the more he talked.

"You don't think that-?"

"Yeah, I do."

"They're whipped."

"They're smitten."

They both started giggling at the thoughts of the two blood thirsty Jashinists falling in love. However, with Deidara and Kitsune in Kitsune's room, and Tobi and Damu heading towards Zetsu's room, and Hidan and Nenriki doing… whatever Jashinists do in their spare time, no one was in Deidara and Tobi's room to notice that despite all of the windows being closed, a small breeze gently brushed over the deceased puppet's things, making them move ever so slightly.

* * *

**OoooOOOoooooOOoooh! Cliff-hanger! I'm so evil! Stay tuned to find out what happens next.**

**Please R&R! Remember, this is my first fanfic, and your comments and opinions motivate me to keep going.**


	5. A Sleepless Night

**Heeeeeey! I'm back in action. **

**Chapter 5- A Sleepless Night**

**PLEEEEEAAAAASE REVIEW! I'm such a n00b at this and I need reviews to keep me motivated! You know you want to!**

**Any who- Here we go again:**

* * *

It was very late in the Akatuki hideout, way past Tobi's bedtime, in fact. Kitsune and Diedara were still at Kitsune's desk, working late into the night on the solvent for the sticky solution holding the Akatsuki together. They had been working for less than twelve hours, and Kitsune had already successfully burned both of their hands, given them a rash, and covered them with large, purple boils that festered and popped at random times in attempts to try her obviously failed solvents. Luckily, the negative effects of these solutions were beginning to wear off. Despite this, Kitsune was still measuring and adding ingredients with vigor, pulling Deidara's hand with hers, while Deidara, on the other hand, had began to nod off.

"Deidara? Deidara? Deidara!" Kitsune yelled, shaking Deidara's shoulder.

"Wha-? Oh I must have been nodding off, un." Deidara said groggily, shaking his head in an attempt to wake himself up.

"Yeah you were, but it's ok. We'd better get to bed, or else I might make another mistake like I did yesterday. I need to let this simmer over night and add a few more ingredients tomorrow before it'll be ready for testing. Also, some of those ingredients I need to collect tomorrow." She said, stifling a yawn, the extent of her exhaustion finally hitting her.

"Yeah, un."

They both crawled into bed together and got under the covers. Since they were siblings, they weren't uncomfortable sleeping in the same bed, unlike some.

* * *

KISAME'S ROOM:

"I hate you."

"I hate you more."

"You fuckin' tied my hand to the bedpost, crazy bitch!" Kisame yelled.

"It was a necessary precaution, so you don't get handsy in your sleep and touch places that I only allow Pein-sama to touch." Konan said, sticking her nose in the air.

"Get handsy? With you? Please, lady, don't flatter yourself. Also, I'm not as desperate as to try to make a move on my boss's woman." Kisame said trying in vain to shift his position so his back was facing her.

"Really? You mean- you promise you won't try to like, force yourself on me or anything, right?"

"Yes, yes, I promise." Kisame said, taking a gentler tone this time. "Don't worry; I'm not that type of guy. I won't try anything."

"Thank-you, Kisame-san. I've misjudged you, and I should trust you not to take advantage of me. I'm sorry."

"So, does this mean that you're going to untie me now?"

"Not on your life."

"Damn."

* * *

IN KAKUZU'S ROOM.

"Ow! Your foot kicked my head." Itachi said, rubbing his head.

"No, your head kicked my foot." Kakuzu retorted gruffly.

"No your- wait, how can my head kick?"

"How should I know? It's not my head."

"Whatever." Itachi said, trying to get back to sleep, despite the fact that his head was nearly hanging off the bed. He nearly succeeded, when a rather unnerving thought came to him. "Kakuzu?"

"What?"

"Don't you dare fart."

DAMU'S ROOM:

* * *

"zzzzzzzzzzzz"

snore

PEIN'S ROOM

* * *

"You smell odd." Zetsu said, sniffing the air. **"Yeah, like sex."**

"Yeah, well, you smell like plant food."

"Touché." **"I will eat you."

* * *

**

NENRIKI'S ROOM:

"_Oh dear Jashin, control yourself, man. Don't jump her, don't jump her, don't jump her, Jashin, just don't jump her!."_

"_C'mon ya pansy! Jump me, jump me, jump me, Jashin, just jump me!"_

As you can tell, there was quite a bit of sexual tension.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING:

Kitsune awoke the next morning as the first rays of light gently touched her face through her window. She yawned and tried to stretch her hands above her head, but was stopped when she remembered that her hand was still attached to Deidara's. Rolling over, she nudged her little brother's shoulder gently, waking him up from is heavy slumber.

"Good morning, sunshine."

"Never… say that… again."

"Noted." Kitsune said, starting to giggle again. "Anyway, we should probably get going soon to start collection some ingredients that I need." Kitsune said, stifling a yawn and hopping out of bed with Deidara. "I just need to add a few more things first."

"Yeah, un." Deidara said, walking putting his ninja sandals on and walking over to the desk with Kitusne, who immediately started adding various roots, mushrooms, and powders.

"Ok, now we can go." Kitsune said, slapping her knees and standing up.

They both left the room, walking toward the door and out of the hideout. When they got to the woods, Kitsune handed Deidara a small book with picture and descriptions of various plants found in this area. When he looked confused, she clarified by saying that the ones that she needed were circled in there. She was well affiliated with these types of plants, so she gave her book to Deidara.

They both got on their hands and knees and began to search the best they could with their hands still attached. Deidara needed to reference the book several times and ask Kitsune about some things, but they were well on their way to getting all of the ingredients when suddenly, it started to rain.

"Damn, and just when we were almost done collecting." Kitsune said, covering her head with her hand.

"Hey, let's just wait in that conveniently placed cave over yonder, un." Deidara said, pointing to the small cave through the trees.

"Yeah, let's go, before the rain gets worse. Then, we can finish collecting when the rain stops. After all, we did manage to get pretty far from the hideout."

They both walked into the cave and sat on the dirty stone floor in silence; the rain falling in the sky for hours. Hours went by and lightning cracked the sky as the two connected siblings slowly drifted off to sleep, resting their heads on the other.

* * *

BACK AT THE HIDEOUT:

Tobi and Damu were heading back to the room containing Sasori's things, having of forgotten about it last night after getting Damu's foot fixed up by Zetsu, which was very awkward, what with the leader having being glued there the whole time. The detour had distracted them, and their short attention span let their minds wander. When they woke up from their deep sleep, and made the trek back to the currently unoccupied room. When they got there, they opened the door and headed for the bed, where they had left Sasori's things the previous day. On the bed, there was a bottle of purple poison, a bundle of stomach coil, and… no shirt.

"What the crap?"

"Did Damu-kun move Sasori-san's shirt off the bed after Tobi left? Tobi asked, tilting his masked head to the right.

"How could I? We're still attached, remember?"

"Oh yeah, Tobi forgot." Tobi giggled, holding up their still glued together hands.

"Whatever, let's just look around here to see if it fell off." Damu said looking around the base of the bed and Tobi looking under it.

"Tobi doesn't see it, do you, Damu-kun?" Tobi said standing up.

"No, I don't. Maybe Deidara-san came in here last night and moved it, not knowing whose shirt it was."

"Maybe Tobi and Damu-kun can search in the bathroom."

"Yeah, let's go." Damu said walking with Tobi to the bathroom attached to the room.

"Tobi will check in the dirty clothes hamper. Maybe Deidara-sempai was going to wash it." Tobi suggested, walking over to the hamper, but stopped when his partner didn't move with him, making him stumble. He looked up to see Damu staring at the mirror with a look of shock on his face.

"Damu-kun, what are you-?" Tobi asked, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what Damu was really looking at. Tobi let out a small choking noise and stared intently at the mirror with Damu, for on the mirror a message was scrawled in black nail-polish.

_Don't touch my shit, if you don't want to be a puppet._

They two missing nins let out horrible, high-pitched shrieks and started running helter-skelter down the hallway, looking for anyone to tell about what had just happened. After turning a corner together, they were fortunate to run into Hidan and Nenriki, both looking tired from their lack of sleep the previous night.

"Nenriki, Hidan-san, help us! Sasori's ghost left a note on the bathroom mirror telling us not to touch his things! He's going to turn us into puppets! We're all going to die!" Damu shouted, crashing into and hugging Nenriki and Hidan for support.

"Hehe, speak for yourself, kid. I'm immortal." Hidan said with a smirk on his face.

"Wait, you're immortal?" Nenriki asked, tilting her head and furrowing her eyebrows.

"Yeah… is that a problem?" Hidan asked nervously, knowing that of the few girls he went out with before they joined Akatsuki, either saw his decapitated head and bolted, or didn't like the idea of themselves growing old and married to a man who still looked as if he was in his mid-twenties. Also, Hidan wasn't as old as Kakuzu or anything, but he was still, in fact, quite old.

"N-no, it's fine." Nenriki said with a smile.

Hidan let out a sigh and relaxed his shoulders.

"Anyway, if we could _please_ get back to the topic at hand. Ya' know, Sasori's ghost, writing on the mirror, turning us into puppets. Any of this ringing a bell?" Damu asked hurriedly.

"How do we know that you guys aren't making this up to try to get us to believe in this 'ghost'?" Nenriki asked, putting and emphasis on ghost.

"We didn't, we swear!" Damu shouted back. "I've never lied to you, have I, Nenriki?"

"Well… no, no you haven't."

"That's what I thought. Come and see the mirror with us and tell us what you think of it."

Hidan and Nenriki both looked at each other and shrugged, but not before blushing lightly first, then they all walked to the room together and entered.

"See, right there is where Tobi left the shirt, but now it's gone." Tobi said, pointing to the bed.

"Please, you guys could have easily moved and hidden it somewhere." Hidan said skeptically.

"But we didn't, Tobi swears!" Tobi said, flailing his arm, pulling a surprised Damu with him. "Come and check out the mirror, maybe then Hidan-san will change his mind." Tobi said, grabbing his hand and pulling Hidan, Nenriki, and Damu into the bathroom. "See, the writing is right there!" Tobi said pointing at the mirror, turning his head to make sure they were looking in the right place.

"Uh, Tobi-kun?'

"Yes, Damu-kun?"

"There's nothing there anymore." Damu said, looking at the now clean mirror.

"You guys! You _are_ little liars! You really expect us to believe that Sasori left a message on the mirror, and then just, like, magically erased it right after you guys left? I mean, what the hell? How dumb do you think we are?" Nenriki asked, crossing her arms the best she could with Hidan still attached to her hand.

"Nenriki-san's right. This is just some shitty little ghost story that you guys made up for fun. This isn't real! I haven't believed in ghost stories since I was a little boy, which was quite some time ago." Hidan said, referring to the fact that his life-span wasn't exactly _normal_.

"We're not making this up, and we'll find a way to prove it to everyone, won't we Tobi-kun?" Damu said, gritting his teeth.

However, Tobi was preoccupied with staring at the mirror with his jaw dropped down, though no one could see that.

"Tobi-kun, are you listening? I said… I said… dude." Damu trailed off, seeing the mirror himself.

"Holy shit." Hidan said, seeing the mirror for himself.

"Damn." Nenriki replied, for on the mirror another message was scrawled right where the first one had been.

_You best start believing in ghost stories, Hidan. You're in one. _(1)

* * *

IN THE AKATSUKI LIVING ROOM

All of the pairs that weren't stuck in a cave or being tormented by ghosts were sitting together, back in their awkward positions, and chatting together.

Kakuzu, who was telling the story of how he earned his first dollar, stopped mid-story.

"So, I killed that bastard and took his wallet- hey, weasel-boy, quit squirming back there. I'm trying to do something here." He said, looking back at Itachi, who was still attached to his neck.

"First of all, I believe I already told you that I _really_ don't appreciate being called Weasel, Weasel-boy, Lord of the Weasels, _several minutes later_… Weasle-sama, McWeasel, or Ickle-Wee-Weasel-Kins, contrary to popular belief." Itachi said, forehead pulsing. "And the reason I'm squirming is that I…um… I… sorta, kinda, gotta…uh."

"Sorta, kinda, gotta _what_?" Kakuzu said, raising and eyebrow.

"Isortakindagottapee! Ok? I haven't gone since we got stuck like this, I'm sorry! Just please take me to the bathroom!" Itachi shouted, flailing his arms.

"Crap." Kakuzu said, getting up with Itachi and walking to the bathroom. "This is going to be _so_ awkward." Kakuzu mumbled, burying his face in his hand.

"Uh, Kisame-san?" Konan asked sheepishly.

"Yeah?"

"I gotta go too."

"You've _got_ to be kidding me." Kisame said, clenching his fists.

"Oh _hell_ no!" Pein shouted, standing up, dragging Zetsu up with him. "There is _no_ way in hell I'm letting you see my girlfriend's lovelies! He continued shouting, narrowing his eyes and pointing a finger at Kisame.

"I'm sorry, Pein-sama, but there's nothing that I can do. When you gotta go, you gotta go." Kisame said shrugging his shoulders.

"He's right, baby, I'll just blindfold him while I go." Konan said, looking up at Kisame.

Pein sighed. "Fine, whatever, but I swear to the god other than myself, if you do anything to her, I'll make you pay. You have no idea."

Kisame gulped and got up with Konan and started walking towards another bathroom in the hideout, like everyone else, contemplating what was to come.

* * *

** (1) I love this line. It's from Pirates of the Caribbean, if you didn't know. It's my favorite line from the trilogy, next to "I've got a jar of dirt. I've got a jar of dirt." And "Nobody move… dropped me brain!

* * *

****Here it is, hope you enjoyed. I'd like to thank all of you who faved and commented on this story. I'll give you a cookie… no wait, that's been done before. How about… a cookie cake! With lots of frosting and whipped cream, and cheese…mmm, cheese, or just a plain old cake, whatever you prefer.**


	6. The Reasons Why

**Chapter 6- The Reasons Why**

**Here it is, please review.**

**All characters belong to Kishimoto, save for my three OC's, although I'm willing to pay Kishimoto for Hidan. He shall be mine, and I'll also buy Deidara for my friend. You know who you are, friend! … HI FRIEND!!! waves stupidly**

**There's a little bit of drama in this one, but I hope you like it anyway. There's humor later in the chapter.**

**Here we go:**

* * *

Deidara and Kitsune had been sitting in their cave for a few hours, drifting in and out of sleep as the rain continued to pound outside and lightning cracked in the sky. Deidara was currently awake and looking at Kitsune, whose head was resting on his shoulder. Since she had arrived at Akatuski, there had been a question that had been bothering him. He didn't ask on the day she arrived because she was probably tired from her journey and wouldn't want to talk. He didn't ask the next day because they were preoccupied with being stuck together and working on a solution and whatnot. He didn't ask this morning because they had been busy collecting various herbs and such. But now, they were stuck in this cave with nothing to do, and Kitsune was beginning to stir.

"Hey, sis, you awake, un?" Deidara whispered, in case she wasn't.

"Y- Yeah, I am." Kitsune said, lifting her head and shaking it to rid herself of any weariness.

"Ok then, um, can I ask you something, un?"

"Yeah, sure, what is it?"

"Well, un, I was just wondering, why did you become a rogue ninja in the first place, un?" Deidara asked, but when seeing the surprised face on Kitsune, quickly added, "But, you don't have to answer if you don't want to. I was just wondering, un."

Kitsune put her head back down on Deidara's shoulder, and closed her eyes. She was silent for several minutes, and Deidara thought that she wasn't going to answer at all. The quiet continued for several more minutes, when suddenly she spoke up, making Deidara jump.

"Do you remember Yokoshima?" Kitsune said with a flat voice.

Deidara ground his teeth together and clenched his fists.

"Yeah, yeah I remember him alright, un. How could I forget that traitorous bastard? He caused me a lot of trouble about four years back. I don't think that I could ever forget _him_, un. But what does you becoming a rogue ninja have to do with him?" He asked, tilting his head to the left and furrowing his eyebrows.

"He came back. He finally came back to Iwa." Kitsune said, still keeping her voice flat and dull.

"He What? N-no way, I can't believe it. I swear to God, if I ever see that traitorous bastard again, I swear I'll kill him slowly and painfully, un. I mean, really, after what he pulled-!"

"There's no need to. I already killed him. He's dead." Kitsune said resting her chin on her knees and narrowing her eyes.

"R-really, you finished him off, un?" Deidara said, surprised. "After four years enduring the pain he caused our family he's finally dead." Deidara said, with a wide smile on his face.

"Yeah, but you know, it's not a very happy story. Even after he came back, the village refused to believe that he was guilty, just because he was a trusted advisor to our Kage. Even our best friends would rather call us liars than doubt the Kage's judgment. Even when there was proof of what Yokoshima did, they didn't believe us. There was proof that he killed her, that he killed… our little sister." Kitsune choked out, tears of rage and tears of sadness spilling out of her eyes. "He did it for no reason. She was in his way of trying to escape from stealing from the Kage. Since she was a new genin, it only made sense that she was overconfident, and tried to stop the traitor. She was the only one that witnessed the robbery, and took matters into her own hands. She was only ten, but she was skilled for a genin, and yet, it wasn't nearly enough to stop him." Kitsune buried her head in her available arm, unable to go on with her recap of the story.

"And then I found her, un. Shizukesa was nearly dead and lying in an ally." Deidara jumped in, knowing this part of the story. "I carried her home and called a medic. She told me about Yokoshima and his robbery. She was… so worried that we wouldn't catch him, and almost went back out to find him, despite her condition. I told her that she needed to relax and that she needed to wait for the medic to arrive, un. Not that it mattered, since she… she died… from blood loss before she arrived, un." Deidara continued, stroking his still sobbing sister's hair, and started blinking, trying to hold back the tears. "I was so upset, that I went to find the murderer myself. I was only sixteen, and a new jounin, un. I didn't care what happened to me, as long as that bastard was dead." Deidara said, tears starting to well up in his own eyes. "I-I tracked him and found him. We fought for a long time, but in the end he knocked me unconscious, un. He quickly came back to the village and claimed that _I_ was the one responsible for killing Shizukesa and robbing the Kage." Deidara clenched his jaw and had to restrain himself from punching a hole in the wall in his rage. "I was forced to leave, but not before I told you what had happened. Soon after, Yokoshima said he had to leave on business, but really it was so he wouldn't be found out, un." Deidara choked out, finally letting his emotion get the best of him, and let the tears flow freely down his face. "I tried to find him, but he wasn't anywhere to be found, and then I got roped into Akatsuki, and was forced to stop, un." Deidara paused, not knowing what came next in the tragic tale.

"Th-then, four y-years later, he came back, hoping the incident had been f-forgotten. But it wasn't, was it? I was still there, waiting for my chance for revenge." Kitsune told, grief leaving her face, only to be replaced with rage. "When I saw him, Nenriki, Damu, and I all went to him and killed him together. They were the only two to ever believe us. We knew that we'd be caught, put in jail, or even killed when the village found out about what we'd done. I said that I'd take the blame, but they wouldn't hear of it. They said that they were my best friends, and they loved Shizukesa too, and we escaped together." Kitsune finished, taking a deep breath and finally calming down.

Deidara felt a surge of gratefulness, for all three of them, even Nenriki. Even if his name wasn't cleared, at least he wasn't alone anymore.

They sat in silence for several more minutes, Deidara still stroking Kitsune's hair.

"Hey, look." Deidara said looking outside. "The rain finally stopped, un."

"Yeah, so it has." Kitsune said drying her eyes.

"Let's go finish gathering your ingredients for the solution, un." Deidara said, starting to stand up, but he stopped when he noticed that Kitsune wasn't making an effort to move.

"Hey, Dei, do you- do you think that you could stay with me for a while, just for a few minutes?" Kitsune asked with a pleading look in her eyes.

"Yeah, sure, why not? I mean, if you're staying here, then I don't have much choice, then, do I, un?

"Hehe, yeah, that's true." Kitsune said, wiping the tears from her face.

Deidara sat down next to Kitsune, and she rested her head on his shoulder. Deidara began stroking her hair and she scooted closer to him.

"Hey, Kitsune, un?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks, un."

"Welcome."

* * *

BACK AT THE HIDEOUT

"Holy Jashin! Those who aren't immortal are going to die! Ahhhhhh!" Hidan yelled with him and the others running helter skelter down the hallway. He was worrying more about Nenriki's safety than his own.

"Tobi told you that the ghost was real! But Hidan and Nenriki didn't believe us! Now we're going to be puppets!" Tobi shouted, dragging Damu behind him.

"Ok, Ok! We're sorry we didn't believe you! Jeez, but I mean c'mon, Sasori's ghost? I mean, what are the odds?!" Nenriki shouted over her shoulder at Tobi and Damu.

"Whatever, it's fine! But now we need to worry about not dying!" Damu exclaimed. "Here let's hide in this closet, maybe we'll be safer in there."

They all veered to the left and squeezed into the annoyingly small closet. They all took a minute to catch their breath.

"OUCH! Dude, you're on my foot!"

"No, you're under mine!"

"Wha-? Hey, is it just me, or is it getting really chilly in here?"

"It's always you, Damu."

"Shut up!"

"Hey, don't fuckin' talk to Nenriki-san like that!"

"Tobi thinks that Damu-kun is right, it is getting really cold in here."

"Yeah, watch this." Damu exhaled and his breath turned into a pale fog.

"Ok, so it's a bit nippy in here." Nenriki admitted, clenching her jaw and snuggling closer to Hidan. Hidan willing wrapped his free arm around her.

"You don't think that Sasori could find us in here, do you? We're pretty well hidden."

_**Try again, Tobi-kun. Wherever you are, I WILL find you. There is no escape. There is no hope.**_

There were many screams and much shuffling as they rushed out of the closet and ran wherever their feet took them. The place their feet took them happened to be right into Kisame and Konan, who had just returned from their "potty break." Konan was looking at the floor with her fists clenched and Kisame was blushing furiously. They ran past them quickly, bumping their shoulders.

"Run for your lives! The puppet man is going to kill us all." Tobi shouted over his shoulder, continuing to run down the hallway.

"What the hell was that all about?" Kisame asked, clearly confused.

"I don't know and I don't care. No talking to me." Konan blurted out.

"Whatever." Kisame mumbled, rolling his eyes.

Meanwhile, the others continued running down the hallway, desperate to get as far away from the haunted closet as possible. They saw Itachi and Kakuzu, and much the same thing happened that happened with Kisame and Konan.

Kakuzu was rubbing his temples with his fingers, while Itachi was crossing his arms and shutting his eyes. His face was red with the blood in his head and embarrassment. His hair was damp with a suspicious liquid that was emitting a strange odor.

Kakuzu sighed and shook his head. "I still can't believe you actually _missed_. I mean, you are_ supposed_ to be an S-ranked criminal aren't you. You can hit anything with a kunai, and yet you don't have control over your own damn dick." Kakuzu said, suppressing a laugh.

"Hey, have you ever tried to piss upside-down? I don't think so, so I don't want to hear it!"

"Whatever."

Those who were being pursued by a ghost continued sprinting down the winding hallways of the Akatsuki hideout. After thinking that they had gotten far enough away, they stopped to catch their breath.

"This…this… can't continue. Something… has to be… done." Hidan said, speaking in between pants.

"Totally… we have…we have to… get rid of Sasori's ghost." Nenriki said, leaning against Hidan for support.

They all knew it was true. They had to stop the ghost, or be stopped themselves, and by stopped, that means turned into puppets. They would not appreciate that. Not one bit.

"We can't do this alone, we need some help. The help of a true genius."

KITSUNE'S ROOM

* * *

Deidara and Kitsune were hard at work, quickly measuring and adding ingredients and throwing them into the potion.

"Hey Deidara, pass me the owl's feather, will you?"

"Sure, un.

Kitsune added this ingredient and stirred it with a stick. The concoction turned a pale blue color and started to lightly bubble.

"Ok, I think it's almost done. We just need to wait for it to start bubbling before we can test it out." Kitsune said excitedly.

They waited in silence for several minutes, watching the bubbles slowly stop to bubble. When they did, Kitsune picked up the bottle and poured a few drops on their connected hands.

"Deidara, try to pull your hand off of mine."

"Ok, un."

"One, two, three, PULL!" They pulled, but nothing happened.

"Damn, I really thought that it would work this time. I don't know what else to try." Kitsune said, hanging her head.

"It's fine, we'll get it next time, un. I really think that we can do it, un." Deidara said optimistically.

"Yeah… yeah, you're right. I shouldn't give up so easily. This is just so hard, and there's the ever present danger that I'll blow something up again."

"There's nothing wrong with blowing things up. I think it's a beautiful form of art, un."

"Yeah, you always did have a strange taste in art. Not the safest, but I can respect it." Kitsune said with a shrug and a smile

"You know, you're the one that got me hooked on explosions in the first place, un. I really found your little mishaps quite interesting. In fact, I never would be as good of a shinobi as I am today if you hadn't 'sparked,' so to speak, my interest in explosions, un."

"Really, well… I'm flattered. I guess that some good came from my failures after all, despite the fact I had to re-grow my eyebrows more times than I care to count." Kitsune said, laughing and shaking her head.

"Oh yeah, I remember that, un. Anyway, shouldn't we start making a new solution, since we do have a time limit, un?" Deidara asked.

"Yeah, hey, wait a second. I think I know what I did wrong before!" Kitsune said, very excited. "I just need to add this… and this… ooh! And some of this!" Kitsune began adding ingredients to the old potion like crazy.

Just then, the door opened to reveal Leader and Zetsu walking back to back.

"Hello Kitsune, Deidara. Just checking up on you to make sure that you're on task and haven't forgotten our agreement. Are you almost finished?" Pein asked, a maniacal smile on his face just _daring_ them to say no.

"Uh…oh, Pein-sama! Yeah, just adding some final ingredients!" Kitsune said, grabbing some random ingredients and throwing them into the potion to emphasize her point, desperate not to invoke the Leader's wrath.

"Good, then, I'll be back to check on you later. Remember, one week." Leader said and turned around to leave.

"**She looks…**_**delicious.**_**" **Zetsu's black half said, licking his lips.

"She sure does." Zetsu's white half said.

They then departed, leaving Kitsune and Deidara both looking very pale.

"Anyway, back to wor… _oh crap_!" Kitsune said, slapping her forehead.

"What? What is it, un?"

"I have _no idea_ what ingredients I just added. This potion is totally useless now. It's too dangerous to try out if I don't know what I put in it." Kitsune said. She sighed and continued. "Let's just go throw it out, but now we have to start from scratch. Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!" Kitsune yelled, stomping her foot hard on the ground.

"It's ok sis. Really, we still have five days left to come up with a new solution, un. We're going to be fine, un." Deidara said, trying to calm his sister down.

Kitsune took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "You're right let's just get rid of this one, so it's not in our way." Kitsune said, her eyes still closed and getting up with the useless potion.

Unfortunately, just then, Tobi, Damu, Nenriki, and Hidan all came running into the room and crashed into Kitsune and Deidara, who was still holding the concoction.

"Kitsune, we know you're busy, but we could _really_ use your help to catch Sasori's- oh, sorry!" Damu shouted, seeing that he had smashed the glass container holding Kitsune's potion, knocking her and Deidara to the ground, making the now purple liquid spill all over them.

"Damu, you idiot! Who knows what this potion could to us? We could start to break out, or it could have burned the flesh off our bones!" Kitsune said, getting up and cracking her knuckles. She saw Deidara who was still lying on the ground and staring at his hands, mouths and all. "Dei, what are…you…doing?" Kitsune trailed of and staring at her hands that she had just cracked. "Or, it could have actually worked! Damu, you're a _genius_!"

"Really, I mean, _genius_? Well… I _do_ have my moments of brilliance." Damu said, not willing to give up one of the few moments that he wasn't being insulted for being dumb, even though he really didn't do anything.

"So, this means that we can get unstuck?" Hidan asked, though not completely excited, with him not exactly hating being attached to Nenriki.

"This is so great! We can finally get unstuck and go back to doing normal things?" Nenriki asked, all thoughts of the ghost once again forgotten.

_Damn. I guess she doesn't really enjoy being attached to me as I enjoy being attached to her. Whatever. _Hidan thought, looking at the floor in disappointment.

"Well… not exactly. I think all of the solution was spilled onto us, and I don't know what I put into it. I was just going to throw it out, and I don't know how to re-make it. It might take a while." Kitsune mumbled, looking at the floor in shame.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me. Don't tell me that you were thinking of pancakes again. Cause' if you were, I swear, I will end you, and sacrifice you to Jashin." Nenriki said, pointing her finger at her friend.

"NO, this time I was being intimidated by the Leader! He distracted me, leavemealone!" Kitsune blurted, covering her head with her now free hands.

"Bloody Hell! How are we supposed to get unstuck then?"

"I'll try to re-create the solution as quick as I can. But, what were you guys doing in here in the first place? Kitsune asked.

"Oh yeah. Sasori's ghost is going to kill us all! Ahhhhhh!" Damu yelled, remembering the situation at hand.

"Oh jeez, not that again, un. I thought we were all clear on the fact that Sasori's dead. There's no such thing as ghosts, un." Deidara said.

"That's what we thought. But then he wrote messages on the wall, and he moved stuff, and then talked to us and told us that there was no escape!" Hidan exclaimed.

"Kitsune, you've been my friend for many years, so you've got to believe me when I tell you that we're not joking around with this. Sasori's ghost is real, and I think we're in real trouble here." Nenriki said, subconsciously gripping Hidan's hand tightly, making him blush.

Kitsune sighed. "Ok, ok, I believe you. But, I don't know what to do, and even if I did, I'm a bit preoccupied here. I'm trying not to get _killed_ by the Leader, remember?" Kitsune replied.

"I know, but we could really use your help. We can't do this on our own. Besides, I think we could all be in danger. Sasori's clearly pissed about something, and we need to do something about it." Nenriki asked, a pleading look in her eyes.

"Fine, fine, I'll help, but I don't know what I can do. But if my friends need my help, I'm obligated to help them." Kitsune said, shrugging her shoulders and smiling. "Let's go look for clues."

"Actually, we found some of his stuff. Maybe we should start there. They might lead to something."

"Sounds like a good idea to me, un."

They all got up and headed toward Deidara's and Tobi's room to examine the stuff Sasori left behind.

"Hey wait a minute!" Damu suddenly shouted, pausing in his gait. "How come Kitsune believed that whole 'friendship' and 'trust' thing when you said it Nenriki, but you didn't believe me when I said it?" Damu said grabbing Nenriki's arm.

"Because you don't matter. You're not smart enough to matter."

"HEY THAT- awwww, you're right. Crap." Damu mumbled.

"S'right bitch."

* * *

**So sorry that this chapter took a while to update. It's longer and swim team and school been a bitch. Plus I've been lazy. PLEASE REVIEW! You don't know how much it means to and author and I would greatly appreciate it. **

**Hope you enjoyed.**


	7. Recruiting Help

**Here it is, chapter seven- Recruiting Help**

**All character except my three OC's- Kishimoto**

**Hope you enjoy. Here we go:**

The ghost hunters walked back to Sasori's room in silence. Kitsune and Deidara were silenced because they were in awe of the fact that they were finally separated, and the others because they were in fear of awakening Sasori's ghost. Their footsteps echoed throughout the hideout as they cautiously stepped through the winding hallways.

When they arrived at the destination, they slowly opened the door and peered inside. The shirt was still missing, but the coil and the poison were still there.

"So," Kitsune said, "we have some of his stuff, but what are we supposed to do with it?"

"Well, we know he didn't like us touching his stuff, and he even took his shirt back." Damu said, "So I guess we could try and lure him out somehow with the stuff we already have. Like, we could set a trap, or something."

"Damu-kun came up with a great idea. Tobi thinks that could work!" Everyone's favorite masked ball of energy said.

"Yeah, Damu. You actually came up with an idea. Wow, what's that? Like, one in a row, I think. A new record!" Nenriki said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Hidan snickered.

"Oh, stop trying to act _so_ cool. You're just showing off for your little boyfriend over there." Damu said, nodding towards the other Jashinist.

"Wha- what are you talking about? Hidan's _not_ my boyfriend."

"Oh come on, you guys. It's obvious you like each other. Life's too short to not just go for it! Just kiss, or something, and get it over with!" Damu yelled.

"Dude, immortal." Hidan said, pointing to his chest.

"Oh yeah."

"Asstard, why would we kiss, and in front of you, no less?" Nenriki angrily asked.

"To truly express your love to each other. To show that you are the ones that really make the other feel all warm and fuzzy inside!" Damu practically sang, flailing his arms and twirling in an artistic manner, dragging Tobi along with him.

"I don't _have_ warm and fuzzy feelings!" Nenriki shouted, displaying her WTF? face. "Right Hidan?"

"What? Oh- yeah, right." _Damn. _Hidan thought with a sigh. _I guess she doesn't really like me as much as I thought she did. Well… fuck._

"Ok, moving on, un." Deidara said, clapping his now free hands. "Let's get back to the topic at hand. How are we going to trap Sasori's ghost? Also, if he's really haunting the hideout, then shouldn't we get all the others involved? We could probably use all the help we can get, un." He suggested.

"Yeah, let's go find the others to help us think of and idea." Damu said.

They all left and trekked down the winding hallways of Akatsuki once again to find the other member. Since the newcomers had only been there for a few days, they knew very little about the other members. Kitsune was the one to ask Deidara.

"Hey, Dei?"

"Yeah, un?"

"Can you tell us what the other members are like? Also, can you tell us what Sasori was like too? It might help us come up with a plan if we know what the others are capable of, and to know what we're up against."

"Good idea, un. Well, let's see, there's Itachi, Kisame, Leader Pein, Zetsu, Konan, and Kakuzu are the other current members of Akatsuki. Itachi uses and eye technique called the Sharingan. It's very powerful, and he can use a lot of genjustu."

"Hey, isn't that the thing Itachi-san used against you, Sempai?" Tobi loudly interrupted.

Deidara sighed in frustration. "Yes, Tobi, yes it was. Quiet time, now."

"Yes Sempai."

"Moving on, Itachi's pretty much emo, and he killed his entire clan, save for his little brother, Sasuke. I've heard that Sasuke is even more emo that Itachi, and that he ran off to work with the pedophile, butt-bow wearing, Orochimaru." Deidara finished, disgusted.

"Jeez! Why would he go with _him_? If someone wants you, and aren't the same sex, you run the hell away!" Nenriki shouted.

"It continues to perplex all of us. We usually don't talk about it, for fear of blowing chunks at the mere thought of it." Hidan whispered in Nenriki's ear.

"Oh."

"Next is Kisame. He's the fish-man with the _really_ big sword." Deidara explained.

"What's he compensating for?" Nenriki giggled. The other showed various signs of amusement, except for Hidan, who busted up laughing.

"Yeah, it's really unnecessarily large. It's just because he used to be a part of the Seven Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist. They all had really large swords for reasons still unknown. Anyway, he looks like a shark, and know one know why that is either."

"That's really cool! I remember now, I saw him when we were running away from Sasori's ghost. He's the one with sharp teeth and the bad ass spiky blue hair. I'd kill for sharp teeth and the rest of him just looks cool!" Nenriki said enthusiastically.

"Yeah, I guess it's kinda cool, I guess." Hidan said sheepishly. _What the Fuck? Does she actually like Kisame? No! No, she can't like _Kisame._ No one's taste in guys is _that _weird. No fuckin' way. I don't believe it. _

"Oh, Nenriki-chan. You're taste in guys was always really strange." Kitsune said, shaking her head and laughing.

"Hehe, shut up!" Nenriki said, shoving her friend playfully.

_Fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck!_

"Anyway, Kisame has the most amount of chakra out of all the Akatsuki. That's because his sword, Samehada, can absorb chakra. Next is the Leader, Pein-sama. He has, like, six different bodies that he uses, un. They all have different abilities, but other than that, no one but Konan and Zetsu know that much about him. Then there's Konan, un. She's the only female in Akatsuki. She uses paper as her justu. She can turn her body into paper and make almost anything from her origami."

"Tch, paper? Lame! What's she gonna do, give me a paper cut?" Damu commented.

"Hey, dude, I wouldn't comment on anyone else's justu. I mean, yours isn't very impressive either. All you can do is move rock, and it's powerful, but it's so slow a tree stump could outrun it! Not to mention, the last time you got paper cut, you almost cried!"

"Shut up! My justu kicks ass. It could destroy your lame ass Jashinists justus, and it happened to be a very painful paper cut. I got lemon juice in it! Leave me alone! You're so annoying!"

Hidan was about to tell Damu to shut the fuck up, but the other Jashinist had a comeback first. "Your _face_ is so annoying!"

"You're mom's so annoying!" Damu retorted.

"Your _mom's_ face is so annoying!"

"Yeah, well… your face is so annoying! YEAH!

"Ooooh, BURN!" Nenriki said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'll _never_ recover from that one."

"Shut up!"

"There's a time and a place guys! A time and a place!" Kitusne shouted, rubbing her temples.

"Yes, next is Zetsu. You've already met him, un. He has that weird plant thing on his head, and he's so bipolar, he almost has two personalities. His black side is creepier, but his white side can be alright. Plus, he's responsible for disposing of the dead bodies the Akatsuki don't want found, un. And by dispose of, I mean-"

"Eating them." Kitsune jumped in.

"Yeah, un."

"Also cool!" Nenriki added.

_Oh, come on! _Hidan thought.

"Sure. Whatever. Last is Kakuzu. He uses the hearts of shinobi he's defeated to extend his life, un. He's also covered in stitches, which he usually covers up with his mask and cloak. These stitches open up, and threads can come out to attack his enemies. Those are all of the current members that you haven't really met, un. Then there's Sasori. He used to be my partner, before he was killed by shinobi from Konoha and Suna. Then this dumbass became my partner, un." Deidara said nodding towards said masked dumbass.

"That's right, Sempai. And Tobi loves being your partner!"

"Yeah… right, un. Anyway, Sasori made puppets from the bodies of former defeated shinobi, including one of the Kazekages. He was very powerful, and an artist that I really respected. Although, he never really thought much of my form of art." Deidara said, disappointed at remembering the fact that his Danna never really liked him.

"That's interesting. Maybe it will be easier to think of a plan now. Hey, isn't that Konan and Kisame right up there?" Kitsune said, pointing to the couple down the hallway.

"Yeah, it is, un."

Kisame was walking with his arm still around Konan, and having, for the most part, recovered from the oh so awkward situation from earlier.

"Kisame-san, Konan-san! We need your help with something right away!" Tobi shouted.

"Uh, ok. What do you need us for?" Kisame asked.

"We need your help to catch Sas-!" Tobi began, but was cut off by his Sempai. "Ewwww, Deidara sempai! When you cover your hand over my mouth it's like your kissing me! Ahhh!" Tobi said, rubbing his tongue clean with his free hand. "Tobi loves his Sempai, but not in _that_ way!"

"Wha-? Whatever, un. But I don't think we should tell them just yet." He whispered so only the others could hear. "They probably won't believe us, and we don't have time to try to convince everyone at once, un. We'd best wait until we have everyone assembled."

"Yeah, good idea Sempai! We can't tell you guys yet," Tobi said, addressing Kisame and Konan, "but we will one we find everyone else."

"Uh, ok, whatever." Konan said, shrugging her shoulders. "Hey, Deidara-san, Kitsune-chan, you're unstuck! Does that mean that the solution is ready so I get away from this fishy freak?" Konan asked, every excited. Kisame looked hurt at the rude name.

"Well… it was sort of an accident. But basically, the solution is gone, and I don't know how to re-make it. So no, no I don't have a solution ready yet." Kitsune said shamefully.

Konan sighed. "Man, that's a bummer. I want to be back in Pein-sama's arms again soon." Konan said sadly.

"Don't worry. I'll get the solution ready soon. Let's get going, we need to find the others."

"Ok."

They all continued to search the hideout for the others, briskly walking down the halls in silence. However, Nenriki had a question she was just dying do know the answer to. She wanted to know the answer to this more than anything else at the moment. And no, it's probably not what you're thinking.

"Hey, Kisame-san?"

"What is it?" Kisame asked, looking back and Nenriki.

"Can I… can I touch your hair?"

"Can you what? Hey!" Before Kisame could answer her question, the crazed Jashinist was already standing on her toes and moving her hand quickly back and forth through the top of the shark nin's hair, making it flip every time it was touched. "What the hell are you doing?!?"

"Haha! It's like troll hair! It does whatever I want it to! Look!" She said trying to make different styles with it. "I can put in a spiky Mohawk, or give you and emover, or pigtails!" Nenriki shouted, with a wide smile on her face, still trying different things with his hair. "This is so cool!"

"Ah! Stop! Get out of my hair! What the fuck are you doing?" Kisame screeched, trying to grab her hands, but his only free arm was on the opposite side of him, leaving the crazy lady out of reach. "Somebody help me!"

"You're on your own with this one." Konan said, clearly amused by the situation, and not about to stop one of the only other females in the hideout.

"Ne- Nenriki-chan, please stop touching his hair." Hidan said cautiously, not wanting to enrage her.

Nenriki sighed. "Fine, but I was having fun! Dude your hair is the bomb-diggety-shizzle! Seriously!"

"Uh… th-thank you?" Kisame said, deeply disturbed at his hair being raped, a little confused but the strange and random lingo said by the kunoichi, and yet slightly flattered at the thought of someone actually liking one of his strange features. Actually, a little more than slightly flattered.

"Damu-kun, your friend is weird." Tobi whispered in Damu's ear, so only he could hear.

"I know, Tobi-kun, I know."

"Tobi is scared."

"You should be, Tobi-kun, you should be."

They continued looking for the others and decided to take a look in the kitchen. There they found Kakuzu and Itachi eating in a very strange position that I'll leave for you to imagine, while Pein and Zetsu were sitting in the sunlight. Few knew this, but other than eating bodies, the plant-man also needed to go through the process of photosynthesis just to keep his strange plant-like attachment looking bright, green, and strong. It was an embarrassing secret that he only told those who needed to know.

"Good, we finally found the others. Took us a damn long time, though." Hidan commented.

"Hey, you guys! We were looking for you, and we need your help with a not-so-little problem we have, un." Deidara said.

"What the hell do you need help with? It better be important. Konan, do you know what it is, darling?" Leader asked, addressing his lover.

"No, honey, they said they were going to wait to tell us until we were all together."

"Hmm, so then, what is this not-so-little problem you have that you absolutely need us for?" Leader asked calmly.

"Well, you see, un, Pein-sama, it's just that-"

"SASORI'SGHOSTISHAUNTINGTHEHIDEOUT!" Tobi shouted quickly, the anticipation, excitement, and fear finally getting to him.

"What the hell do you mean that Sasori's ghost is haunting the hideout?" Zetsu asked, waking up from his meal.

"**The puppet-man is dead. I tried to dispose of him, but he was disgusting! Made of wood, he was. Who knows how many of my family members he killed making himself and his damned puppet army?" **The black half said.

"We _know_ he's dead. That's why we said that his _ghost_ is haunting the hideout, smart one! He's been torturing us with his messages and his talking to us and his ability to fucking find us and such!" Nenriki shouted.

"Ok, ok, calm down. But aside from this ghost-ish problem of yours, Kitsune-chan and Deidara-san, why are you separated? Did you finish the solution?" Leader asked.

They told the leader much the same thing that they told Konan earlier. Pein did not look pleased.

"Kitsune-chan, you get back to work right away. We don't need your help with this, this, whatever _this_ really is. We can handle it. You are dismissed." Leader said, waving his hand, as if to shoo her away.

"But-!" Kitsune sighed, knowing that it was not in her best interest to argue with the leader. "Yes sir." She said, and departed without another word. She really believed that she could have been of some help, but no one else wanted to argue with the leader either.

"Anyway, back to Sasori. He's dead, and there's no such thing as ghosts."

"That's what I said!" Hidan interrupted.

"Silence! Anyway, how can I believe you? Do you have any solid proof that this ghost exists? If you don't, then don't expect us to believe you, and don't expect us to help you." Pein said, in a tone that said he wasn't going to change his mind.

"Yeah! How can you expect us to believe _that_?" Konan asked, wanting to agree with her lover, and yet, somehow secretly wanting to agree with the other females.

"Yes." Itachi, who had been silently trying to eat without making even more of a mess on himself said. "If there was a ghost, I would have noticed it with my Sharingan. It can see all."

"Yes, yes, we know already, un." Deidara said, who really didn't think much of the Uchiha. "However, you could have missed it because you were hanging upside down, un? Are you really able to see much of anything in that position?"

"Uh, well… no, I guess you're right, for once."

"That's what I th- Hey! What do you mean 'for once'?"

"Nothing."

"Whatever, un. Bastard." Deidara mumbled under his breath, but loud enough for Itachi to hear it.

Kakuzu decided it necessary to throw his two cents worth in. "Sasori's been dead for quite some time now, why would he decide to start haunting this place now? It makes no sense."

"Your _face_ makes no sense!" Hidan shouted, pointing at his partner. When he noticed that everyone was looking at him he added, "What? It's a good comeback."

"_Anyway_," Leader began, "Sasori was strong but even if his ghost did exist, he wouldn't be strong enough to even pose a small threat to the mighty Akatsuki. He wouldn't even stand a chance against all of us."

_**Is that so, Sir Leader? Because I think quite the opposite.**_

"What the fuck was that?!" Leader yelled, standing up in his surprise.

"It was the ghost! I know it was! I recognize his voice!" Damu shouted.

"Look, 'Sasori,' or whoever you may be, do you know who you're talking to? Because I don't think- Ahh!" Pein was cut off because of an invisible force that grabbed his ankle, forcing him to fall flat on his face, with Zetsu landing on top of him.

"Pein!" Konan yelled reaching an arm out toward him.

"Zetsu-san!" Tobi yelled, doing the same.

_**Don't…test…me. You don't know who you're dealing with. I'm stronger than I ever was when I was alive. I've found a new way to immortality. I cannot be stopped.**_

Everyone had a terrified look on his or her face. They were all looking around for where the invisible, raspy voice was coming from. Suddenly, the temperature dropped dramatically, and the lights flickered on and off. A chilling breeze blew through the hideout, and it began to focus towards the center of the large room. The air was concentrated into a ball, which then took a translucent form of none other than the puppet master, Sasori, himself. Floating several feet off the ground, he glanced at the faces frozen in fear, an evil grin on his face. He looked around, but his eyes stopping when they fell upon the faces of Nenriki and Damu, who were standing right next to each other, and shaking visibly along with the others.

_**Why, hello there, little ones. You must be new here. **_He floated down to them and reached a hand out to cup Nenriki's cheek. Nenriki shivered and the icy cold feeling that hit her. _**You have a pretty face, woman. However, since you and your friend don't belong to Akatsuki, I have no grudge against you. **_Sasori said. The smile on his face quickly disappeared, only to be replaced by a grimace._** I have no need for you, and therefore I will dispose of you.**_

Hidan, remembering himself at these words, suddenly forgot all fear. "You better stay the fuck away from Nenriki-san! Jashin-sama will protect me!" He yelled, drawing his scythe with his free hand. "I am immortal, and therefore, there's not a damn thing you can do to me!"

_**Ah, yes. I believe I had the pleasure of meeting your God. Quite a fellow he was. I can see why you worship him. However, not even he, a God, can stop me. No one can!**_

"Hey! I'm the only fucking God around here!" Pein shouted, but he was ignored by all.

"We'll see about that!" Hidan hollered, swinging his scythe with skill and throwing towards the ghost. Sasori remained motionless as the scythe passed right through him.

_**Maybe you should have paid more attention to those ghost stories, Hidan. Everyone knows that ghosts aren't solid.**_

Hidan stared at the phantom, dumbfounded, and at a total loss at what to do know. If he couldn't get at his blood, if he even had blood, then he couldn't fight. He was totally useless, and he couldn't stand that, especially in front of Nenriki. The only thing he could do was hold her tighter in his arms, even though he knew that nothing would stop the ghost.

"Danna, stop this, please, un!" Deidara spoke up.

_**Do my ears deceive me, or is that Deidara I hear. **_He said, his gaze falling towards his old partner. _**I remember how you used to call me that… Danna. It was your nickname for me… when I was alive. However, brat, I have no intention of stopping. Your useless form of art can do nothing against me. Your art, that only is alive so briefly, can do nothing against true immortality.**_

"I-I know, but, Danna! Why are you doing this to us? What did we do, un?" Deidara asked with a pleading look in his eyes.

_**Why? Why am I doing this? Simply because- AHHHH! **_He was cut off by something unknown, and remained frozen in midair with a look of shock on his see-through face for several seconds before disappearing into thin air.

"Wha- what just happened?" Tobi asked.

"I believe that was my doing."

Everyone looked at Itachi, who had sat up and was holding himself up by grabbing onto Kakuzu's shoulders. He had his Sharingan activated, and, as usual, had no emotion on his face.

"What did you do?" Leader Pein asked, still on the ground with Zetsu.

"I sucked him into another dimension with the power of my Sharingan. No one can escape that place, immortal or not." He said, keeping his voice flat.

"B-but we were just about to find out what he wanted with the Akatsuki, un! Couldn't you have waited just one more minute?" Deidara shouted at the Uchiha.

"It doesn't matter what he wanted with the Akatsuki, does it? As long as he's gone now, we have no need for that information."

"Itachi's right." Nenriki spoke up. "Besides, he saved us all, and we owe him for that. Thank you so much Itachi!"

"Whatever." Itachi said, lowering himself back down to his position upside-down.

"Ok, problem solved, I guess." Damu said. "Man, was that anticlimactic." He said, almost disappointed at the lack of action.

"Damu!" Nenriki shouted.

"What? What happened? What?"

"I can't believe you actually used the word anticlimactic correctly in a sentence!"

"Hey, I'm not a stupid as you think. I have my moments." He said.

The two missing Iwa nins had their usual bout of insults, which Hidan and Deidara had learned to ignore.

Meanwhile, Hidan was deep in thought. _Why couldn't I do anything against him? I was useless, and there was nothing I could do to protect her. If Itachi hadn't come in… Itachi. She probably likes _him_ now. I'm so screwed, man. FUCK!_

Speaking of Itachi, who was trying to relieve himself of the weariness from using the Mangekyo Sharingan to trap the ghost of Sasori, was relaxing against Kakuzu's back. Meanwhile, deep within the recesses of the black and red world of Mangekyo, almost undetectable, a presence stirred.

**There it is chapter seven, hope you liked it. I really like writing it. Please, for the love of Jashin, REVIEW DAMNIT! I really want to know what my readers think of the story!**

**PS: I don't hate Itachi, he's just fun to make fun of. I do, however, despise Sasuke with all my heart and soul, and you should too! **


	8. Hugs, Kisses, and Heart Crushing

**Chapter 8- Hugs, Kisses, and Heart Crushing**

**Kishimoto owns Naruto, I am not Kishimoto, and therefore I do not own Naruto…damn.**

**Here we go, WOOT!:**

The next few days went by as normal as a day in the Akatsuki lair could go. Most of the members were still stuck together, but Kitsune could always be found in her room, hard at work to find a solution. Deidara had relayed to her the events that had happened earlier, and that Sasori's ghost was no more. Kitsune was overjoyed with this information, but had little time to celebrate, because she now only had two days left to find a solution. Deidara often came to visit her, and to help her in any way he could. Unfortunately, she wasn't getting any closer to finishing her solution. She simply couldn't remember what she had put in the mixture the other day to make it work. She was running out of time, and she was running out of hope.

ELSEWHERE:

Kisame, Konan, Nenriki, and Hidan were eating their breakfast of pancakes, courtesy of Deidara. (Don't worry. Deidara brought some to Kitsune, so there wouldn't be another little mishap.) Hidan and Nenriki tried the best they could to eat neatly with only one hand, while Konan, who had both of her hands free, ate all lady-like and whatnot. Kisame, on the other hand, made it seem as if the whole point of eating was to shovel your food in as fast as you can, and chewing was illegal.

Konan cleared her throat loudly. "Kisame-san, please! Could you at least _try_ to use your manners? The way you eat, it's just so… so…so beast-like and rude!"

Kisame turned towards her. "Well _excuse me_ if- oh sorry!" Kisame tried to say, but stopped when he had sprayed Konan's face with half-chewed pancake bits.

"UHG! EWWWW! GROSS! Kisame-san, what the hell?!" She yelled, wiping her face with her sleeve. "God, you're so ill mannered!"

"Look, I said I'm sorry!"

"Well, look where you're spitting your food next time, fishy freak!"

Kisame was about to throw an insult back at her, but stopped when he heard the term 'fishy freak.' With a hurt look on his face, he quickly turned his head, and went right back to shoveling his food away, the hurtful term echoing in his head. _Fishy freak… fishy freak… FREAK!_

"Ooooh, sore spot!" Konan said triumphantly.

"Kisame-san, are you alright?" Nenriki asked softly, looking at Kisame, who had stopped eating, and was looking down at his free hand in his lap.

"Wha-? Oh!" Kisame said, looking up, "I'm fine, just fine, hehe." Kisame smiled weakly and went back to eating.

"Yeah, the Loch Ness monster doesn't really have any feelings! He's just a big old beastie!" Konan said, laughing at her own joke and pinching Kisame's cheek playfully.

Kisame jerked his head away and clenched his free fist, digging his fingernails into his palm.

"Oooh, what's the matter? Did I hurt Shamu's feelings? Awww, are you gonna cry like a little guppy? Hey, I bet-!"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Kisame yelled in frustration. "Don't fuckin' call me names of famous sea creatures, bitch! Do you think I choose to be like this? I don't appreciate you insulting something about me that I don't have control over! Leave me the hell alone!" Kisame shouted, breathing heavily and glaring knifes at the female, and looking even scarier than before.

Konan shrank back down in her seat. "K-Kisame, I-I didn't think that-"

"No one ever seems to." Kisame said gruffly, and narrowing his eyes and trying to get up to get away from the woman, but stopped when he remembered that he was still attached to her. Sitting back down, he sighed. "Damn it." Not wanting to be alone with her, he went back to staring at his hand.

Hidan and Nenriki were sitting in their seats in silence and staring at the scene that had just unfolded before them. Nenriki, who was biting her lower lip, couldn't stand it any longer. She got up and walked over to Kisame.

"Nenriki-san, what are you doing?" The Jashinist asked, having been dragged up with her.

Nenriki didn't reply but simply embraced Kisame, giving him one of the only hugs that she had ever given in her life. She usually wasn't much of the hugging type, but she had, in fact, been feeling warm and fuzzy lately, and decided to try one of these 'hugs.'

Kisame looked up in shock at he sudden contact, eyes wide and arm spread out, as if unsure what to do with it. Hidan looked like he was about to puke, especially since half of his arm was bent backward around Kisame due to the position of the hug. And also there was the whole _hugging_ thing. Kisame was about to pull the strange parasite off of him, but then he felt…he felt…good. He enjoyed the feeling of someone's warm arms around him. He never got many hugs from where he came from, or where he currently was…except for Tobi.

"There, there, Kisame." Nenriki said softly, starting to rub his back and burying her head in the crook of his neck. "For what it's worth, I think you look totally awesome."

Kisame, beginning to truly enjoy the warmth of Nenriki, and wrapped his arm around her, returning the hug. "R-really? I mean, you're not just saying that, are you?"

"No! Of course not! I'm totally serious. Your appearance is so unique, and I love it. Do you know how freakin' cool your teeth are?" Nenriki said, smiling and pulling away from the hug and putting her hand on his shoulder. "You shouldn't feel bad for the way you look. If you were famous you'd probably have _some_ fan girls." Kisame realized how closes their faces were, and blushed. Hidan growled possessively, and gripped Nenriki's hand tight.

"Yeah, blind fan girls." Konan mumbled under her breath.

"And you!" Nenriki said, pointing an accusing finger at the other woman in the room. "How dare you make fun of someone, especially someone who is supposed to be your ally, because they look funny? Cheesy as it may sound. I'm so fucking sick of you anyway." Nenriki ranted. "All you ever say is _Pein-sama _this, and_ Pein-sama, _that.If you keep on acting like some little girl who can't handle not having a big, strong man to protect her, then you'll never be a respectable kunoichi, or even a respectable person. You may be strong enough to be the only female in Akatsuki, but your attitude give the rest of us females a bad fucking name! I can't stand girls like that, I really can't!" She finished. They were all quiet for several seconds. Konan was silent in shame, Kisame was silent in gratitude, and Hidan was silent from unspoken love and awe.

"C'mon Hidan-kun, let's go do a ritual. I need to cool off a bit."

"Y-yes, Nenriki-chan." Hidan stuttered, and they both scurried off to worship their God in their own twisted way.

_I've got some competition now. _Hidan thought. _Bu, man it's so fucking worth it. Nenriki is amazing. Sweet, smart, funny, strong, independent. Damn, what would she need me for? _Hidan wondered, hoping that there was a reason for her to love him. Because Hidan realized, during her rant, during which he had remained silent, that he did, in fact, without a doubt, love Nenriki. She was breaking down the barriers that he had kept around his heart for so long.

Back at the kitchen table, Kisame and Konan were sitting in silence. Konan, who couldn't take the awkward silence anymore, was the one to break it.

"Kisame-san, I-!"

"Forget it. It's ok, really."

"Oh…ok."

The silence went on for several more seconds, before Kisame was the one to speak up.

"So, it must be a bummer to be on the bad side of one of the only other females in the hideout."

"What?" Konan asked, puzzled.

"I mean, Nenriki kind of blew up at you. You must be pissed, and not like her anymore."

"Kisame-san," Konan began, "I _love_ her."

This time it was Kisame's turn to be confused. "What?"

"She's amazing. Do you know how incredible it would be to have a mentor who was constantly pushing me not to let the fact that I'm a woman get me down? It's so hard to be a kunoichi, you have no idea."

'_I_ have no idea. Who're you talkin' to, woman?"

"Oh-oh yeah. Sorry."

"No Problem."

ELSEWHERE:

"Hidan-kun, are you paying attention to what you're doing?" Nenriki asked, turning her head to look at him. They were in a room with a rock floor that Hidan used specifically for religious purposes. They were both on the same Jashinistic symbol, and were well into a ritual. Hidan had been staring intently at Nenriki, watching her stab her chest with a long, metal spike. _Jashin, her breast look great covered with blood. _ Now, gazing directly into her eyes, his face turned a darker color that the blood covering his bare chest.

" What? Oh…yeah, I am." Hidan said, in a spacey voice.

"Are you sure? Because I think you just nailed yourself to the ground." She said, pointing to the spike sticking out his abdomen, and digging into the rock ground.

"Oh shit!" He said, trying to get up, and failing. He pulled on the stake with his free hand, but it was slippery with blood, and he couldn't get a proper grip on it.

"Here, let me help you with that." Nenriki pulled the stakes out of her own body, and straddled Hidan's waist. She couldn't really go in any other position since their connected arms only let her go so far. Hidan opened his mouth to protest, but was stunned into silence.

Nenriki gripped the spike with her free hand, and Hidan with his. Nenriki counted to three, and they both pulled. They pulled with such force, that when the spike came flying out, Nenriki lost her balance and fell right on top of Hidan.

"Haha, oops!" She said making an attempt to get up, but slipped on the puddles of blood and landed right back on top of him. Blushing slightly, she opened her mouth, "Sorry!" she yelled.

Hidan was blushing redder than the six shades of hell, and could only let out a small grunt in return. _This could be my chance! _He thought, _I need to know if Nenriki loves me, or at least likes me back. I can't fuckin' stand it anymore! Screw it!_

Nenriki made an attempt to get up with Hidan, but stopped when she felt him grip her shoulder tightly. "Hidan, what are you doing?"

Hidan, she called him Hidan. She _always_ called him either Hidan-san or Hidan-kun. Sweet.

Hidan slowly moved his hand to the back of her head, and brought it down so it was just inches away from his face. "Nenriki, you amaze me." Hidan said, looking deep into the eyes of the woman that so plagued his heart. "You're one hell of a woman, and- and," _Oh, be a man, damnit! _" AndIthinkIlo-!"

"HIIIIIIIII, Hidan-san and Nenriki-san!" Tobi yelled, as he and Damu busted through the door.

Hidan closed his eyes and sighed, leaning his head back and gently hitting hit against the floor in exasperation. Nenriki looked around, trying to avoid Hidan's gaze, making small choking noises. She quickly got up, and pulled Hidan up with her.

"I think that's enough of a ritual for today, don't you think so, Hidan-san?" Hidan remained silent. "Ok, sure. So, what did you guys need, now?" Nenriki asked, addressing Damu and Tobi.

"Well, Nenriki," Damu started, "since the ghost is gone now, we don't have anything interesting to do. We were going to ask you if you wanted to do something with us, but you appear to be busy." He said, noticing the odd position they were just in. "We'll see you guys later." Damu said trying not to giggle at the odd situation they had just walked in on.

"Uh, we're not busy. We just finished, right, Hidan-san?"

_Hidan-_san_, damn. She's not calling me just Hidan anymore. _"Oh, y-yeah. We just finished out ritual." He stuttered.

"_Right_, anyway, I think we'll look for someone else to hang out with. C'mon Tobi-kun. Let's go chase Pein-sama around with a giant magnet to see what happens to his face!" Damu said with an evil grin on his face.

"Right, Damu-kun." Tobi said. Turning back to Hidan and Nenriki, he said, "Bye, you guys. Don't forget to use protection!" With that, he left Hidan and Nenriki both gaping, blushing, and totally lost for words.

Tobi and Damu ran quickly down the hallway, lest Hidan and Nenriki came out of their shock of what had just happened and what Tobi had just said. Tobi and Damu weren't the sharpest sandwiches at the picnic (my metaphor), but they were sharp enough to realize that a little _somethin' somethin'_ was going on back there. They slowed down their pace one they were far enough away from the room, and looking for the leader to torment because they were bored.

On their way to the Leader's chambers, they were unfortunate to run into Itachi and Kakuzu, who were crankier that usual due to another sleepless night. Not watching where they were going, they literally ran into them, and making a heap of missing nins on the floor.

"OW! OW! OW!" Tobi yelled, who was currently being crushed by the three other, and his attached arm being bent back by Damu, who was on top.

Once the shock had worn off, Kakuzu's short temper got the best of him. "What the hell? Watch where you're going, dumbasses! I've already got one dumbass to deal with; I don't need two more fucking up my life!" He shouted, struggling to get up with Itachi on his back.

"H-hey, don't… don't call me a dumb… a dumbass. I…I… oh jeez." Itachi said shakily, swaying his head back and forth.

"Ok, then. I'll just go back to calling you weasel. How about that, Itachi-san? Itachi-san? Hey, Itachi, you don't look so hot. You alright?" Kakuzu asked, looking back at Itachi, who was moving his head back and forth slowly, as if he was dizzy. He was pale, and his pale skin was paler than usual and sweaty.

"I-I… ugh. I don't feel so hot." He said, rubbing his temples and continuing to sway back and forth.

"Itachi-san," Tobi said, "Maybe we should take you to Zetsu-san. He can probably get you some medicine, or something. You're probably sick."

"No…no shit Sherlock." He said, beginning to slur his words, and his eyes beginning to fog over.

"I guess I have to take you there, Itachi-san. If you get sick then I might get sick, and if I get sick, then I have to waste time getting better. And time is money! Onward to Zetsu!" Kakuzu shouted with some rare enthusiasm, and pointing his finger dramatically upward, and walking briskly off to the Leader's room.

"Well, Tobi-kun, I guess we'll have to find someone else to bother." Damu said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Let's do arts and crafts with Deidara-sempai's clay. C'mon, I know where he hides it."

"Doesn't his clay explode?"

"Yeah."

"_Cool_!"

The dangerous duo ran of to wherever Deidara kept his clay, which only Tobi and Deidara himself knew was hidden among the labyrinth that made up the medicine cabinet which contained endless brands of hair care products.

Meanwhile, Itachi was getting worse by the second, as was fighting to keep consciousness. His eyes drooping and his vision was failing more than usual.

"Hold on Itachi-san, we're almost there." Kakuzu said indifferently. Just then, Itachi completely lost consciousness.

"Shit. Oh, Weasel-kins, you probably wasted all your energy using that weak Mangekyou Sharingan of yours. What a waste, too. I probably could have taken that wussy of a ghost by myself."

Just then, Itachi's eyes shot open, his eyes rolled back into his head. The white of his eyes were glowing brightly, and then he started shaking violently, as if he were having a seizure.

"I-Itachi-san?" Kakuzu said weakly, stopping his gait to look back at the dark haired Uchiha.

"Please, don't underestimate me again. I will make you pay." Itachi said in a raspy voice, so quietly that Kakuzu hardly heard it.

"O-ok, jeez Itachi-san. If you're going to have a freaking seizure just because I called your Mangekyou Sharingan weak, then I'm sorry. I'll lay off. Didn't know you'd get _so_ offended by a little insult."

"I'm not talking about the Sharingan." He replied in the same creepy and somehow familiar voice.

"Itachi-san?"

"I don't think so."

Kakuzu looked over his shoulder in alarm, only to be met with auburn eyes that didn't belong to Itachi.

"What the-? Ahhhh!" Kakuzu yelped in pain as he felt a searing pain at the base of his neck. He winced as he felt behind him, and felt a warm and sticky liquid cover his fingertips. He did not, however, feel a foot there like he expected. He quickly turned around to see Itachi standing on his own, and ripping the tanned skin off the remainder of his heel. Kakuzu used his stitches to seal the wound on his back, while he stared in shock at Itachi. "What the hell was that for?"

"Freedom, at last! A day in that prison felt like an eternity." Itachi said, looking up to the heavens.

"Oh, come on, now. I'm sure it wasn't very comfortable, but it wasn't _that_ bad being stuck to me was it?"

Itachi acknowledged Kakuzu by looking at him and tilting his head to the left slightly. "Ah, Kakuzu-san, long time no see… eh?"

"Itachi-san, what the hell are you talking about? You were only unconscious for about ten seconds. You must really be sick and delusional to not even remember me, and to be as bold as to rip you fucking foot off of my neck! That hurt like hell!" He said, gripping the front of Itachi's cloak.

"You could really use a breath mint, ya know? You usually wear a mask, and you never did have to brush your teeth, did you? I didn't either, since I'm made of wood and don't have to eat." He said, with a flat tone.

"Itachi-san? Now you're hallucinating. Listen to me…_you're not made of wood! You have a need to eat! You're…_ Hey! My breath doesn't smell that bad!" He yelled, shaking Itachi to emphasize his point. "I need to get you to Zetsu right away, if you're sick enough to insult me!"

"I suggest you stop shaking me and put me down, or suffer the consequences. And stop calling me Itachi. It's not my name, after all."

"Ok, Weasel-chan." He said, dropping Itachi. "Now let's get you to Zetsu, before you totally lose it. I sure hope Zetsu doesn't charge for these types of things." Kakuzu said, half to himself.

"I don't think so. At least, you're not going anywhere." Itachi said with an evil glint in his eyes. "I'm clearly not who you think I am."

"No, I think _you're_ not who you think you are."

"Hehe. I know exactly who I am. I am an artist, and my art will last forever. Even after I die, my art will go on." Itachi said, taking a deadly serious tone.

"Itachi-san, now you sound…like…Sasori?!?" Kakuzu said, finally realizing just what was going on.

"Nice guess. Took you long enough. Unfortunately, I can't have you around to tell people that I'm back, now can I?" Sasori said with a maniacal grin on Itachi's face.

"What do you mean? I can take you now that's you're solid no problem. Bring it, puppet!" Kakuzu said, preparing his threads in his body for a fight.

Sasori merely chuckled, and extended his arm to Kakuzu's chest. Kakuzu tried to grab it with one of is tentacles, but it simply passed right through it.

"What the hell? You're solid now! Why can't I touch you?" Kakuzu said with confusion and still continuing in vain to swipe at Itachi's arm on his chest.

"Foolish mortal, I am not bound by the bonds of you humans. I have control of the characteristics of human and ghost. I can be solid, or not solid. I can be visible or invisible. I have more power than I did before by possessing the body of Itachi. He didn't truly appreciate art, so I don't care about his fate. Now…where was I? Oh yes! DIE!" Sasori said suddenly, plunging his non-solid arm into Kakuzu's chest. Turning his hand solid he firmly gripped Kakuzu's beating heart. Kakuzu cried out in pain at the contact, and tried to jump away, but Sasori was dragged with him. There was no escaping this enemy. He was trapped. He was screwed.

"N-no, please don't." Kakuzu stuttered in fear. This feeling of fear was new to him, and he didn't like it. Not one bit.

"Pathetic human. Do you think I begged for mercy when I was about to die? No! I was given no mercy, and you shall receive none." Sasori, using Itachi's small but strong body shoved Kakuzu hard against the wall. "Now, you shall face death, with our without your dignity. Die, pathetic mortal!" Sasori grabbed the still beating heart hard and yanked it right out of Kakuzu's chest. Kakuzu screamed loudly in pain and watched in fear as his heart was yanked out him, making a very painful cavity in his chest. Sasori, who was gripping the still beating heart attached to several veins and arteries that still led inside of Kakuzu looked at Kakuzu and let out one small chuckle as he clenched down hard on the organ. The heart was crushed with a squishing noise, and splattered blood everywhere. Kakuzu merely gaped, in too much pain to make a sound. Sasori grabbed Kakuzu's cloak and roughly threw him to the ground. Without a second glace, Sasori, appearing to be Itachi, merged into the wall and left Kakuzu, bleeding and motionless on the floor where he once called home.

BACK WITH KITSUNE

"Arg! Fuck! Damn! Shit! Fuck! Damnit to Hell!" Kitsune screamed in frustration, grabbing at her long blond hair.

"Try to calm down, Kitsune." Deidara said, resting his hand on her shoulder. "You sound like Hidan when he's out of hair gel."

"I'm sorry, Dei. It's just so frustrating, ya know. The solution is right here in front of me, and I can't figure it out. God, I just feel so stupid right now."

"Well, how about I go get Tobi and Damu to help us? Think about how smart you'll feel in comparison!"

"Thanks Deidara, but somehow I think they'll just make things worse for us. What I need is a real genius. Someone who has experience with this and really knows their way with herbs and such."

"Ya know, that really sounds like Sasori, un. He made the best poisons for his puppets that was nearly impossible to find a cure for. He was always making puppets or cooking up poisons. And to top it all of, I don't think any of them actually exploded, un." Deidara said, talking almost fondly of his Danna, despite the fact that he had recently tried to kill them all. He had always respected Sasori, even thought he had gotten no respect in return. "If only he was still here today, he could probably help us. But he's dead, un, and his ghost is gone. He didn't seem too fond of the Akatsuki, so I doubt that he would ever help us, even if his ghost was still around, un." Deidara said shrugging his shoulders.

"Well, he would really help us, by what you've told me. But as you also said, he's gone and probably wouldn't help us anyway. So instead of rambling, I should probably get back to work" Kitsune said, reaching for a brightly colored root and throwing it into the new mixture she had created. They worked in silence for several more minutes, but then, a low grumbling sound disrupted the silence.

"What was that?" Kitsune had jumped slightly at the sound.

"Uuuuuh," Deidara said, with a shifty gaze, "I think that was my stomach. I haven't eaten since breakfast, un."

"Ok, how about you go get us some food, while I keep working here?"

"Sounds good, un. I'll be back in a few minutes." With that, Deidara got up and headed for the Akatsuki kitchen to get some Doritos, Cheez-its, other munchies popular among the Akatsuki bunch.

Kitsune continued to work, measuring and cutting and pouring and mixing. She was so focused on her work, that she didn't even realize the small wind that blew through her hair, or the soft footsteps behind her. She was completely oblivious to everything but her work until she felt a cold hand cover her mouth and a sharp pain in her head, and knew no more.

**HAHAHAHA! I left you with another cliff-hanger! It keeps me motivated to keep writing (or typing, really). What shall happen to Kitsune and the others? Read to find out. Also, the fewer reviews I get the slower I type, so you guys better review if you're desperate to find out. **

**On a more important note, I enjoy making fun of Kisame's appearance as much as the next person, but he needs love! I think Kisame rocks, and should be made fun of less. Remember, whenever a character is in need, it's our obligation to fill that need. Who are we? We are the fan girls, of course! Narutared (or Akatsukitarded) and proud! WOOOOOOOOT! XD**

**PS: I do not own Cheez-its or Doritos. **


	9. Decisions

**Chapter 9- Decisions**

**Naruto belongs to Kishimoto. God I wish I had that right to Naruto, or just the Akatsuki, really. Nor do I own Cheetos. Or condoms.**

**Here we go:**

Deidara was walking briskly to the Kitchen to obtain some cheesy snackage. You see, while Kitsune's weakness was pancakes, Deidara went ape-shit over artificial cheese. He loved the finger-lickin' goodness. Lost in thoughts of solidified dairy, he daydreamed all the way to the kitchen, where all of the other members of Akatsuki were, except for Itachi and Kakuzu, but they were usually quite anyway, so no one really noticed or cared. He went to the cupboard to retrieve the munchies. Searching the shelves, he mumbled to himself.

"Let's see…pretzels, canned soup, Sharingan O's, a box of condoms…that's strange, un. Uhhhhh…AHA! Cheetos, score!" He yelled grabbing them and the condoms. Putting the Cheetos under his arm, he walked over towards Pein and Zetsu, and tossed Pein the box. "Heads up, un!" Pein caught the box and looked confused at Deidara. "I found those in the cabinet, un, and I thought I should return them to you, before Tobi saw them and burned his virgin eye." Deidara pivoted on his heels and went to leave.

Tobi, who was sitting near by, blushed so hard that it could be seen through his bright orange mask.

"Tobi's a virgin?" Damu questioned loudly, but slapped his hand to his mouth when Tobi hung his head in embarrassment. "Oh, sorry. That was kinda loud, wasn't it?"

"It's fine, all the Akatsuki members know anyway. Besides, Tobi has plenty of friends here at Akatsuki, so he doesn't need females anyway! Right, Deidara-sempai?"

Deidara stopped in his tracks. He didn't really hear the question, but he didn't really care. "Um, sure, why not?"

"Yeah, females are _so _overrated." Damu said, in an impression of a gay voice that made both Tobi and Damu giggle.

"Wait, so then, is Damu-kun a virgin, too?" Tobi asked, tilting his head to left.

"Well, ugh…actually…no, no I'm not." He said quietly, not wanting to lie to his friend, but not wanting to make him feel bad or jealous. "But, it's really not a big deal, or anything. It's not like you're missing anything" Damu lied.

Hidan was staring blankly at Damu, trying to keep his cool. _No…fucking…way. There is fucking way in heaven or hell that he would do anything with…oh dear Jashin. Words cannot describe the images that are in my head right now. _Hidan's eyes were now bulging out of his head.

"Hidan-kun, are you alright?" Nenriki asked Hidan, who was now clenching her hand very tightly.

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine, just fine." Hidan said angrily, his voice saying that he clearly wasn't fine. Nenriki, however, let this slide. _I know that she knew him way before she knew me, because she just calls him Damu, not Damu-kun or san, like she does with me. _At this point, Hidan was really panicking and looking back and forth frantically. _Damu's just so…so…stupid! That man whore!_

Deidara, who had practically forgot about his sister, had opened the Cheetos, and started popping them into his mouth, almost having orgasms. "Oh God, the cheese! The cheese!" Deidara started licking his fingers, and let his hand mouths help him.

"Deidara-san, calm yourself down, before you wet yourself!" Kisame shouted.

"Yeah, I mean, get a room, jeez!" Konan added. Both blue-haired members started laughing together. The duo had become closer in the brief hours since their little incident. Pein, had noticed this, but unlike Hidan, was indifferent. He wasn't the jealous type, mostly because no one, especially Kisame, could so much as hold a candle to a God like himself.

Deidara scoffed and went to leave to his sister's room, not knowing the troubles that lay ahead. Walking through the winding corridors of the Akatsuki hideout, and continuing to munch on the Cheetos, he heard a soft moan further ahead. Stopping in his gait, he strained his ears to see if he could hear it again.

"H-help…me."

"What? Who is that, un?

He was only answered by a long groan. Deidara began to quicken his pace, and then soon broke into a run. Led by the echoing groans, he started to sprint through the halls. "H-hello? Kitsune, is that you, un? Are you alright?" Deidara stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a large figure bleeding on the floor. He slowly approached the figure. When he got close enough, he saw that it was Kakuzu, not Kitsune. A flood a relief spread over him, but he dropped the bag of Cheetos when he saw a large, bloody cavity in his chest. Deidara ran over to him and kneeled down by his side. Calling his name and shaking him, he tried to wake him up.

"Kakuzu-san! Kakuzu! Dude, un! Wake up!"

Kakuzu's eyes fluttered open and slowly focused on Deidara. Suddenly, his eyes shot open and he sat up.

"Sasori!" He shouted, but he winced when he sat up. Deidara gently pressed a hand to his chest to make him lie back down.

"What about Sasori? What happened here? Where's Itachi, un?" He quickly asked, wanting to know answers.

"Itachi…Sasori…ugh. My…my chest." Kakuzu looked down and the still bleeding hole in his chest and grimaced. He slowly pulled his threads out and began to fill the hole and stitch himself up. He began to breathe easier and started to talk. He told Deidara about what had happened quickly. How Sasori had possessed Itachi and how he had hurt him. Deidara's face got more panicked as the story went on.

"So-so, Sasori's really back, un?"

"Yeah. I don't know where he is now. He could be anywhere. I saw him walking through the walls before I passed out. He has even more power than he did before." He tried to get up again, and this time succeeded. Panting, he continued. "He could be anywhere now. Who know what damage he could do to Itachi? None of us stands a chance against him alone. We need to- hey, where are you going?" Deidara didn't even wait for Kakuzu to finish his sentence before he started to bolt off towards Kitsune's room.

"I need to check on my sister! You go alert the rest of the Akatsuki, and we'll meet in the kitchen, un!" He called back over his shoulder.

Kakazu went as fast as he could towards the kitchen, with his heart having just been ripped out and all. "Man, luckily Sasori forgot that I had five hearts. I guess it really has been a while since I've seen him. Damn, now I gotta go find a new one. What a waste of time, and money!" He mumbled to himself.

…

Kitsune was barely aware of what was going on or where she was. Everything was dark, and her head felt like it was about to split. She slowly opened her eyes, and her vision was blurred. Once her eyes focused, they revealed a dark chamber with no windows that was dimly lit with candles. There were several tapestries, and there was a large, decorated throne made of stone. It reminded her of medieval times from story books. "Wha-? Where am I?" She turned her head and slowly glanced around. "I haven't seen this part of the base before. How'd I get here?"

_**I brought you here, my dear.**_

"What? Who's there?" Kitsune suddenly became very alert and looked around for the source of the voice.

Itachi walked out from behind a large throne like chair that was in the middle of the room.

"Itachi-san, is that you? Why have you brought me here? What the hell is going on?" Kitsune tried to get up, but then realized that her hands and feet were chained to the stone bed that she was on. The kuniochi struggled against her bonds.

Itachi slowly stepped out of the shadows, revealing his face to the chained girl. Kitsune gasped and stopped struggling and the sight. at the sight. He had the body, hair, and clothes of Itachi, but his eyes…his eyes were auburn, instead of the usual onyx or the crimson Sharingan. They didn't belong to Itachi, but to something completely unknown to Kitsune. They were narrowed into slits, and were glaring at the kuniochi_**. I'm not Itachi, you fool.**_

"Then who the hell are you? Are you some perverted pedophile that hides in Akatsuki? Oh my God! I'm gonna get raped! Help! Help me!" Kitsune struggled harder against her bonds.

_**Stop that! I'm not going rape you! The only pedo that ever was in Akatsuki was my old partner, Orochimaru.**_

"Wait a minute; your partner was Oreo-chimaru? That means…that….you're Sasori?!?"

_**Finally! Smart one you are. It took the other one ages to figure out who I was. By the way, I don't believe we've ever had the formal pleasure of meeting you, although I've watched you around the hideout.**_

"You've been watching me? Now I _know_ you're a pervert!"

_**No I'm not! Tell me your name, it's common courtesy, after all.**_

"Fine, then. I'm Kitsune, Deidara's big sister."

_**Deidara's own flesh and blood, eh? I don't believe that he ever mentioned a sister when I was his partner. But, you do have the same eyes, and hair, and you have a headband from Iwagakure. I can't hurt my adorable little partner's sibling.**_

"So you're going to let me go?"

_**No. Unfortunately for you, Deidara's not my partner anymore, so I will do what I choose to do with you. But there's no point in killing you just yet. I will simply use you to obtain what I desire first. Then…we'll see what I can make of you.**_

"You can't do anything to me. My brother will be here any minute to rescue me any minute! He's much stronger than you know."

_**Not many know that this place exists. In fact, I'm the only one that knows about it, since I made it myself. An as for your brat of a brother, he was my partner for years before I died. I know his abilities in battle. And you weren't even there when I fought the rest of Akatsuki. You don't know the full extent of my powers. I am all powerful.**_

Kitsune was about to open her mouth to retort, but Sasori, still in Itachi's body, was by her side before she could even blink. He placed a hand over her mouth and, once again, knocked her unconscious to silence her.

IN THE KITCHEN

Those who weren't hobbling away for all they were worth, being held hostage, looking for the one being held hostage, or holding someone hostage, were either eating or chatting in the kitchen.

"Hey, Damu-kun, look at Tobi!" Damu glanced at his friend, who had two long stick pretzels sticking out of his mask. "Tobi's a walrus! Arf arf arf!"

"Haha, very nice Tobi-kun, very nice!" Damu promptly took two more pretzels from the bag and stuck them under his upper lip. "Nohw I am tsoo! Arf arf!"

The two were having tons of fun playing with their food in a childish manner. They began to giggle. Giggling somewhat bothered Kisame, who got up and walked over to them with Konan.

"Ahem."

The duo stopped giggling and looked up at the shark-nin who was glaring down at them.

"You guys are an embarrassment to the Akatsuki." Kisame stated, and walked over to the pantry to grab a bag of Bugles. "If you're going to do something as childish as play with your food," Kisame continued, reaching into the bag and grabbing a handful of Bugles, "do it right, noobs." Kisame then proceeded to place the chips on each of his fingers. "Bwahahahaha! I have witch nails!" Kisame waved his fingers in front of Tobi and Damu. They all laughed and tried to think up ways to play with their food. And for the record, jalapeños and ice cream is not as edible as once thought. Tis quite painful indeed. Bad things happen to good people.

They continued to joke around and have a good time, when the swinging western cowboy doors leading into the kitchen opened suddenly. (_Every_ evil hideout needs one of those.) Unfortunately, the user of said doors was still weak, so the door swung back and hit him with a thud, and a small groan was heard. "Owwww." He quickly ran through the door before they could swing back and hit him. Everyone, having heard the commotion, was now staring at the doors. Kakuzu, who had just used more energy than he had, fell to his knees, filled with relief that he had finally reached his destination.

"What's wrong with you?" Hidan asked. "Swinging doors got the best of you? I never knew that inanimate objects could be so-"Hidan stopped when he saw that Kakuzu was now face down on the floor, and his cloak was caked with blood. "Dude, what the hell happened to you?"

Kakuzu slowly lifted his head to look at the rest of the members. He grunted out, "S-Sasori. He's back. He's stronger." Kakuzu let his head fall back onto the ground.

"What is this nonsense?" Leader said from behind Zetsu. "Sasori's been taken care of. Now, what happened to you? Where's Itachi?" He was answered with silence. "Answer me, damnit! I am your superior, and-!"

"Itachi. Sasori. Sasori's inside of Itachi." Kakuzu was panting now, and not even bothering to lift his head off the ground.

"Somebody help him, for God's sake!" Konan spoke up.

"No need to help him for my sake!" Pein laughed at his own joke, and made no move to help his subordinate.

"Shut it, Pein! Can't you see he needs help?" Konan shouted at her lover.

"K-Konan." She had never spoken to him this way before. "How dare you-!"

"I dare because people can't be afraid to disagree with you when you're clearly wrong! Because-because I don't want to always be thought of as a little girl who can't take care of herself. I'm a kunoichi, and I need to start acting like one!" It seemed like Konan was more talking to herself than to Pein now. She grimaced and moved with Kisame to help pick Kakuzu up and put him in a kitchen chair, leaving Pein dumbfounded.

Kakuzu lifted his head up to look at them through blurred vision. He wiped some of the sweat off of his forehead and he sighed. "Whew! Thank you, that's much better."

"So what were you saying about Sasori being inside of Itachi?" Konan asked quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Damu, Tobi, and Hidan suppressed giggles at the poor wording of that statement. Nenriki shot all of them a death glare, which immediately silenced them.

"Sasori escaped Mangekyou, and possessed Itachi's body. He separated himself from by back, ripped one of my hearts out, and fazed through the wall. I don't know where he is now, and Deidara was just going to check on his sister when I left to come tell you guys this."

Just then, Deidara came bursting through the door.

"Oh, speak of the Devil." Kisame said.

Deidara was panting from his sprint from his sister's room and back to the kitchen, and he had a panicked look on his face. "K-Kitsune's gone." He said between pants. "I-I think Sasori took her somewhere. We have to help her."

"What? No way!" Hidan spoke up. "It's too dangerous, especially now that he has more power than before. We couldn't do a damn thing against him last time! What makes this time any different?"

Nenriki looked at Hidan with such a strong anger in her eyes that he cringed from it. "What the fuck to mean by that? We have to do something! She's my best friend; I can't just let her die!"

"B-but, I don't want to see you get hurt!"

"I don't care what happens to me! I'm going to help her if I have to cut my own hand off! I'd really like your help, but I'm going with or without your help, right Damu?"

"Right!"

"Great now who else is with us?" Nenriki asked enthusiastically. Unfortunately, the question was greeted by silence. The members averted the kunoichi's intense gaze. "Well?" More silence. "So, no one's going to help us, then?" Silence.

"You bunch of cowards!" Damu shouted. "I thought that you were supposed to be the strongest shinobi in the world, but clearly I was mistaken. You're all just a bunch of cowards! Tobi-kun, I thought you were my friend!"

"Uh, Tobi, umm, Tobi isn't that strong, and, ummm."

"Forget it." Damu turned his head so he didn't have to look at Tobi.

"Idiot, you have to help me rescue my sister, un!"

Tobi looked down in shame and was silent.

"And Konan," Nenriki turned her attention to the blue haired female, "we kuniochi have to stick together, don't we?"

Konan opened her mouth to reply, but then too, remained silent.

"You guys, please! We really need you're help."

The base remained silent, as the members were deep in thought. They were all thinking of how the newcomers had impacted them just in the past several days.

_Nenriki-san stood up for me when Konan was making fun of me, and now we're actually friends. I've always been so self-conscious about my appearance…but now…_

_Nenriki-san changed me. She motivated me to be a better kuniochi, and a stronger person. Not just Pein's little toy. I owe her._

_Damu-kun is my friend. I shouldn't just leave him hanging like this. And I need to help Deidara-sempai. He'd never forgive me if his sister was hurt._

_Nenriki, I love her so fucking much. I'd never forgive myself if she was ever hurt. I can't let her do this._

The silence went on for several more seconds.

"Your silence speaks for you. You won't help us, then? Fine." Nenriki pulled out a kunai, and put against the skin where she and Hidan were connected, and Damu did the same. "Jashin damn you, Hidan. Jashin damn you." Hidan gaped at her, for this was the greatest insult for a Jashinist, although he felt he deserved it.

Tobi was staring, open-mouthed at his friend, even though you couldn't see it. Damu raised his hand and was about to slash down, and Nenriki did the same, but Tobi grabbed his hand.

"Damu, wait." Damu relaxed his hand. This was said to Damu, but Nenriki stopped too. "Tobi has changed his mind. Tobi will help his friends." Damu dropped the kunai, and hugged his friend the best he could with only one free arm.

"Oh, thank you Tobi! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much!"

"Damu, too tight, too tight!"

"You guys are such fruitcakes."

Damu released him from the hug, and stood up with Tobi, a fire burning in his eyes. They walked over to the current rescue team that consisted of Damu, Tobi, Deidara, and Nenriki. This bold act seemed to inspire the others too. Konan and Kisame both stood up and silently walked over to the group. No words needed to be said. Once again, the silence said it all.

Nenriki looked deep into Hidan's eyes. "Last chance, Hidan. Are you sure you won't come with us?"

"I'm not going to let you go! You don't stand a chance against Sasori! Never, in a million fucking years will I ever…_ever_…let you go up against-!"

Nenriki rolled her eyes. "Hidan, you're a jackass." She said plainly, and smashed her lips against his. His eyes widened, and his face was the color of the clouds on his cloak. His mind was having a hard time registering what was happening. He made a small choking noise.

_Ne-Nenriki? Holy fucking shit on a stick! I'm being kissed by Nenriki! Wait a minute…I'm being kissed by… Nenriki...thank you Jashin!_

Hidan's eyes fluttered shut, and returned the kiss. Nenriki put her arm around his neck, and Hidan put his arm around her waist, deepening the kiss. They were so lost in the moment, and completely oblivious to anything else.

Meanwhile the rest of the Akatsuki were standing there in awkward silence. Konan placed her hand on her chest and silently mouthed an 'awwww.' Zetsu handed twenty dollars to Pein, which he promptly accepted and stuffed in his pocket. Kisame, Deidara, and Tobi looked away awkwardly, while Damu produced a video camera out of thin air. "Blackmail." He said a sing-song voice. Kakuzu was still kind of out of it, and just stared at the scene with a blank face, wondering if he'd left the oven on.

Pein decided that that was enough, and cleared his throat with a loud 'ahem.' Hidan and Nenriki separated and looked as if they had forgotten the other members were there, and they were blushing, but still smiling. Hidan looked deep into Nenriki's eyes. "Nenriki, I love you." He said quietly. Clenching his fists, he shouted, "Now, let's go kick some undead ass!"

The leader asserted his authority and cleared his throat once again. "Ok, now that we've all got that out of our systems, I can finally tell you that none of my members will be going anywhere." He stated dryly.

This statement was greeted my gasps and words of protest that fell upon deaf ears.

"I've made up my mind! I'm not going to have my subordinates get themselves killed for something that doesn't even benefit the organization. Why should we care about some random bitch that doesn't even-!" He was cut off by Konan, who had quickly walked over to him and slapped hard him across the face.

"You are going to listen to _me_, now." Konan said, grabbing the front of his cloak. "We're going to help them get Kitsune back, and here's why. Deidara's one of our members, and we're obligated to help him, they're our guests, and helped alert us that there even was a ghost. Plus, she's somewhere in the Akatsuki base, so she's our responsibility, and all three of them have helped some of us out in some way."

"She frigging got us stuck together!"

"So what? A lot of us have been getting along better than we have before anyway! Who says that this is necessarily a bad thing? _You_ don't have to come, but_ we're_ going regardless of whatever the hell you have to say about it! Got it?"

"B-but why-?"

"Because I said so! ...Honey." She added sweetly. She then dropped Pein and walked calmly back to the group. She glanced at Nenriki, who gave her the thumbs-up.

Pein, with a stupefied look upon his face, made a small choking noise. Finding his voice, he stuttered, "O-ok, baby. B-but how are we supposed to save her? I mean, we don't even have-have a plan o-or anything." All stared at their leader with awe. None had heard him stutter like this before. It was cool.

"We're shinobi, Pein. Do we usually have a plan going into battle?"

"No, but-!"

"That's what I thought. And besides, we don't have enough time to think of one. We'll just have to wing it!" She said hopefully, clenching her fist.

The rest of the group looked uneasily at her, but then they all just smiled and cheered a bit.

"What the hell, I guess we're in it too." Zetsu said. "We just follow orders."

"**Yeah. We've done more dangerous things before.**"

Tobi leaned over to whisper in Damu's ear. "Tobi thinks that we might have a new Akatsuki leader, now."

Damu nodded and giggled along with Tobi.

"Ok, now, where do we start?" Kisame asked.

"Let's split up, un." Deidara said. "This base is huge, so it might take a while. It'll be faster that way, un. Nenriki, Hidan, Tobi, and Damu will go in a group, Kisame Konan, Leader, and Zetsu will go in another, un."

"Hey, don't forget about me!" They all turned to look at Kakuzu, who was standing and smiling.

"Kakuzu-san," Konan said, "you should be resting. You're not fit to do something like this."

"You're forgetting," he replied, "that I have another four hearts. I heal pretty quickly. I'm fine."

"Ok, un. If you're sure that you can handle it, then you can go in Pein-sama's group."

"I'll be fine. Like I said, I'm a quick healer."

"It's true, ya know." Hidan said. "Stitches here was able to rip my fucking head off ten minutes after being stabbed in the gut like, twelve fucking times!"

"Why did he rip you head off?" Nenriki asked.

"I was the one that stabbed him."

"Oh, ok then." Nenriki thought it was best for all not to ask more.

"Well, we've already wasted a lot of time, so I think we ought to be going, un."

"Hey! I'm the Akatsuki leader, and I should be the one…giving…orders." Pein trailed off and cringed as he got a death glare from Konan. "Onward, then! We should meet back here in half an hour to report anything of interest."

The two teams nodded and ran off in separate directions, running at full ninja speed, and using all of their ninjistical abilities and senses to try and find any type of clue that could help them. They all just hoped that they weren't too late.

DUNGEON AREA:

Kitsune had long stopped struggling against the chains that bound her, and was lying on the stone bed, trying not to cry. She cursed her female hormones, and closed her eyes, hoping for a miracle.

Sasori, still looking like Itachi, was sitting in the large stone throne with his eyes closed and had his chin resting against his chest. Suddenly, he lifted his head and his eyes shot open. This attracted Kitsune's attention.

"What? What's going on?"

_**The others are coming to look for you. They've all started to search the hideout. I can sense their presence drawing nearer.**_

Relief swept over her. She was going to be ok. The others were going to defeat...whatever the hell he was, and they would rescue her. A smile spread over her face.

_**Don't get too excited, little one. I'm stronger than you think. They don't stand a chance against my Godly power. You better hope for their sake that they don't find you here.**_ Sasori smirked and chuckled. He then went back to his state of meditation and said no more.

She now was praying for a miracle. She was terrified for herself, for her friends, but most of all, for Deidara. If something happened to him…no, she wouldn't allow it. She closed her eyes and prayed like crazy to her God, and she even threw in a little note to Jashin. She needed all the help she could get. She thought of all the things she would do if she got out of here alive. Surly, she would finish her solution that had caused her so much trouble the last few days; she would never blow anything up ever again, or try to at least. She couldn't make any promises. She wanted to learn how to play the guitar, better herself as a kuniochi, beat Damu's record in cannonballing bowls of pure nacho cheese, which was seventeen bowls in ten minutes, by the way, among other things. Deep in thought, she hoped that she could even dare to hope for anything, and dreaded what was to come.

**There it is, chapter 9, Decisions. I know I suck at titles; you don't have to tell me. It's the story that counts though, right? Anyway, hoped you liked it.**

**PLEASE REVIEW!!!! If you go home and your house is burned down, just remember…it wasn't me. coughreviewpleasecough**


	10. Search and Rescue

**Chapter 10 (two digits…woot!)- Search and Rescue, Search and Destroy**

**This story is so much fun to write, but I'd like to know if ya'll enjoy reading it! R&R, por favor!**

**Let's do this:**

* * *

The two teams were still looking energetically for the lost girl somewhere in the Akatsuki hideout. Opening every door and exploring every corridor, they continued searching and finding nothing. The nins used all of their crazy ninja senses to search for a trap door, or a hidden clue. They didn't even know what they were looking for.

"Hey, maybe if we go to a place where Sasori was, we could find something about where he is, un." Deidara suggested.

"Well, we don't have any other ideas, so let's go." Damu agreed. The rest just nodded in agreement.

"Ok, then, un. Let's go to where I found Kakuzu. That's nearby, anyway." Deidara sprinted off, and taking the first right he came too. The others sprinted after him. They took another right, and then a left. Suddenly Deidara stopped. About twenty feet ahead of them, the floor was covered in Kakuzu's blood. "Here it is, un."

"Ok, let's look for anything suspicious or stra-!"

"Look!" Deidara shouted, cutting Nenriki off.

"What is it? Do you see a clue, sempai?" Tobi asked.

"No!" Deidara said, sprinting over to the bloody floor. Stooping down, he picked something off the ground. Standing up and turning around, he said, "I found my Cheetos!" with a smile, and he began munching on them. Everyone sweat dropped.

"Oooook. Now that that's out of the way, let's really begin searching." Damu said.

Everyone nodded and began searching the area. They inspected the walls, the floor, and any other place around it.

"There's nothing around here but the old bastard's blood and Cheeto crumbs!" Hidan shouted, throwing his arms up in the air.

Nenriki gently grabbed his hand and smiled. "It's ok, baby. I know we'll find something soon." Hidan smiled back, and gave her a small peck on the lips.

"Thanks sweety."

Deidara raised an eyebrow at them, and Damu rolled his eyes and grimaced, mumbling something about new couples and wanting to puke. And as for Tobi, well, who really knows what expression he made? They continued to search fruitlessly, when Deidara spoke up.

"Ok, un. We're clearly not finding anything useful here, so let's so search in my room. His stuff is still in there. Maybe it could lead us to something, un."

"Sounds good."

"Sure."

"Great idea, sempai!"

"Let's just hurry up."

They all sprinted off towards the room, still glancing looks at the walls and floors as they went. When they arrived, Deidara ripped the door open, and went to the cabinet where he had placed the possessions for safe keeping. Luckily, they were still there. He grabbed them and placed them on the bed, being careful not to break the poison bottle or the coil.

"So," Damu began, "now that we have his stuff, what do we do now?"

"Uh, well," Deidara sighed. "Didn't really think that one through, un." He said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Everyone sweat dropped…again.

"You're having a damn stupid day, Deidara-chan!" Hidan commented, and Nenriki nodded her head in agreement.

"Well, last time we touched his stuff he got pretty pissed. Maybe if we, like, toss it around or something, he'll get mad again and come out." Tobi suggested.

"Hey, that's not a bad idea."

"I guess Tobi's having a smart day today." Tobi blushed…I think.

"Ok, let's try it." They then proceeded to play what appeared to be a game of monkey in the middle with the coil. Tossing around the stomach wire, they actually appeared to be having fun, despite the situation.

CREEPY DUNGEON AREA OF DOOM

Awakening suddenly from his state of meditation, Sasori lifted his head quickly, with one wooden eye twitching. _**My possessions…senses…tingling. You! **_He shouted, pointing a finger at Kitsune, whose head rose slightly from her praying._** You stay here; I need to take care of something.**_

"It's not like I can go anywhere anyway!" She retorted.

_**Whatever, just don't do anything stupid**_. He floated up out of his throne and through the ceiling, mumbling to himself. _**Darn kids. No respect for the dead, or their elders, even if I did kidnap her and chain her to a table**_. He left Kitsune on the cold table in the dimly lit room, awaiting her fait. Floating up several more feet, he was soon above ground and on the first floor of the hideout. Phasing through walls, he quickly reached the room where he sensed a disturbance. Maintaining invisibility, he entered the room. The sight he beheld there almost made him piss himself, if he even could piss, that is.

That idiot of a member, Tobi, was lying on the ground in a very uncomfortable position, with Sasori's stomach coil tangled up around him. Struggling to break free, he almost snapped it in half. The others were laughing, except for that new boy, who was trying to help him with his one free hand. Such disrespect! Such childish behavior! Sasori had seen enough. Materializing as Itachi and putting on his meanest face, he yelled at them, releasing all of his rage.

_**What the hell is going on here?!**_

Everyone remained dead silent for several seconds, then Nenriki let choked out a question. "I-Itachi-san? Is that you?"

_**No, my dear. I am not Itachi. I am not anyone that belongs to this world. Not anymore. And soon, none of you will be either.**_ He then disappeared and reappeared right in front of her and grabbed her throat. She choked out a little gasp and a shriek. Hidan's eye's widened as he made a grab for his hand. But of course, it just passed right through it. Face contorted with rage, he used all of his manly strength to try to rip his love away from the demon clutching her throat. Instead of freeing her, he simply managed to throw Nenriki across the room, brining himself and Sasori with him.

The other three were in shock. Tobi, who had finally gotten untangled, had gotten to his feet with Damu's help and stood there frozen. Deidara, whose shock had worn off first reached out his hand and yelled for the wrestling mess on the ground to stop.

"Sasori-san! Stop it! Sasori! Danna!"

At the mention of his name, Sasori stopped struggling. He let go of Nenriki and stood up, brushing the black bangs out of his face. Hidan embraced Nenriki on the ground and she buried her head in the crook of his neck, still gasping for breath. Sasori looked intensely at his old partner.

_**I am no longer your Danna, so do not address me as such. **_He said, grimacing when he said 'Danna.'

"Where's my sister? Where's Kitsune?" Deidara asked, panic in his voice.

_**Ah, your sister. Don't worry; she's safely awaiting you to rescue her. Unfortunately, you'll never find her. She's hidden deep in a place where only I know about. You'll need my help to get there. I just used her as bait to lure all of the Akatsuki together. I want to get my revenge on you all at once. **_

"Wait! What will happen to Itachi-san?" Tobi interrupted.

Sasori ripped his head around and glared at the masked member. _**Don't interrupt me, foolish mortal! **_Sasori then violently hit Tobi with the back of his hand. The force was so strong, that it sent both Tobi and Damu crashing into the wall several feet behind them.

"Tobi!"

"No, Damu!"

Tobi and Damu lay there motionless on the floor, rubble from the wall gently falling onto them.

"You bastard! How could you, Danna!"

_**Don't call me Danna!**_

Deidara didn't hear this last comment because he had already run over to Tobi and Damu. He turned them face up and gently shook both of them. He was soon joined by Hidan and Nenriki.

"Tobi! Tobi! It's your senpai! Can you hear me, un?"

"Damu! Stop kidding around you asshole and wake the hell up!"

"C'mon you guys are you okay? Wake up, damnit!"

Damu's eyes slowly twitched, and Tobi let out a small grunt, but still remained unconscious and motionless. Deidara whipped his head around and blew his bangs out of his face. "You bastard! Why did you hurt him?

Sasori was just floating there and looking quite pleased with his handiwork, cause' causing pain is fun, children! _**Why not? He bothered me, so I got him out of my way. Isn't that what you would do if someone bothered you, brat?**_

"No, well, not with Tobi at least. He may get on my nerves a lot, but he's still my friend, and…and I'm proud to be his sempai!" Deidara blushed after he said this, because he knew that he never acted like it was true. However, he still kept on his tough face on and continued his rant. "I know that I got on your nerves a lot, _Danna_, but you always put up with me! I don't know what's happened to you, but you've really changed, un."

_**What's happened to me, brat? I died. Funny how death can change one's priorities and views.**_

"Well, I haven't changed, and I know that the old Danna is in there somewhere, un."

_**No, brat. The Sasori you used to know is gone forever. **_

Deidara knew that he had to do something to bring the old Sasori out. He didn't know how or why, but he knew that it needed to be done. Then suddenly, and idea hit him. Even though it was against his own view of art, he knew that there were some things that would never change or disappear. "So, the old you is gone forever, un. It's really gone, un?"

_**That right brat. **_Sasori said with a smirk on Itachi's face.

"Well, if it's gone, then it didn't last forever, correct, un?"

_**Correct, brat. Where are you going with this? I have evil deeds to do. **_

"If it didn't last forever, then isn't that against your view of art?"

Sasori looked at Deidara with an open mouth. He then quickly looked away and blushed as much as a halfway deceased demonic puppet in someone else's body could blush. _**Uh…I…uh, um.**_

"Jeez, Danna. I guess that I was right. My art _is_ better than yours, un. I win." Deidara said in a sing-song voice.

_**NO! that's not true, and it never will be. Art is meant to be preserved forever! Not your useless art. Blowing it up as soon as it's made! Such disrespect. **_Sasori spat on the ground at Deidara's feet.

"If that's true, then why were you the one to die, huh? How come-?"

_**I didn't choose to die!**_

"But you _did _die! That just proves that all things come to an end. I'm right, and you're wrong, un." Deidara smirked, as if he enjoyed taunting Sasori, even though he really didn't. Deidara knew that Sasori didn't want to die.

Sasori gritted his teeth. _**You son of a bitch. How dare you insult my art? If you insult my art, then you insult who I am. No one gets away with insulting me, brat. **_Sasori's face turned red with rage and he let out a ghostly howl of pure anger that could be heard from the other side of the hideout. He then swooped down and towards Deidara. Reaching his hand out toward Deidara's chest, he aimed for his heart. However, instead of grabbing his heart, his momentum passed right through Deidara and hit the floor hard. He lay still for several seconds, until he quickly jumped up and went for Deidara again.

Deidara's visible eye widened. Sasori was blinding by his rage, and just began flailing his fists wildly, not even bothering to take aim this time. He let out another cry of rage. Deidara easily dodged the blows, but was being pushed against the wall. Nenriki was still tending to Tobi and Damu, while Hidan was staring silently at the battle with wide eyes.

Sasori managed to back Deidara up against the wall. He then pulled his arm back, let out one more yell, and quickly threw his arm forward. Deidara managed to duck as his fist skimmed his ponytail on top of his head and blasted a huge hole in the wall. The almost ponytail-less blond somersaulted past Sasori and skidded to a halt with his feet and hand on the ground, glad that he had escaped. Looking at the large crater in the side of the wall, his face paled.

"Oh snap." He muttered to himself.

Sasori whipped his head around and glared knifes at Deidara. Deidara started backing up slowly towards the other side of the room and Sasori stared taking small, slow steps toward him with his eye twitching visibly. Deidara felt his fingertips brush the wall and looked back to see that there it was indeed. He quickly looked back at Sasori and reached for a kunai in his pouch. Suddenly, Sasori started to back up again. Deidara tilted his head to the left in confusion. Then, Sasori quickly jumped up and pushed his feet hard against the wall and shot off like a rocket towards Deidara. Deidara barely had time to realize what had happened. He didn't have time to dodge, and the attack was too strong to block. So instead he closed his eyes and cringed.

Deidara expected to feel something smashing against his face, but instead he felt something tackle his side and bring him hard onto the ground. When he opened his eyes, he was staring up into a bright orange mask. From said mask a sound was emitted that made him twitch with annoyance every time he heard it.

"Are you alright, Sempai?"

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine, un." Deidara looked to the left and saw Damu lying there next to him. He waved excitedly at Deidara, who smiled awkwardly and grunted. "Thanks for saving me, I guess, un."

"No problem."

"Sempai?"

"Yeah, un."

"Are you really proud to be Tobi's sempai?"

"You little shit! You were awake the whole time, un!"

"Well, Tobi was pretty out of it, but that part stuck out to Tobi. He was too tired to move, and he still hurts a lot."

Deidara was about to beat the stupid out of Tobi, when he remembered that he was in the middle of a fight. He quickly stood up and looked at the spot where Sasori had collided with the wall. He saw Itachi's body in a small heap on the floor. It began to twitch and the others prepared to fight. The body lifted its head up to reveal black eyes. When he saw everyone in battle positions, the eyes turned to the crimson Sharingan that we all know and love.

"What the hell is going on here? And why does my head want to split open?" He groaned and put a hand to his head.

"I-Itachi-san? Is that you?" Tobi asked.

"Wha-? Yeah. Who else would it be?"

"Itachi-san! You're alright." Tobi then glomped Itachi with the force of ten fan girls and gave him a bone crushing hug. Itachi's eye twitched and his arms were eagle spread in mid-air, as if he was unsure what to do with them.

"I feel uncomfortable in this position." He muttered tonelessly.

"Homophobe." Hidan muttered under his breath.

"C'mon baby! Be happy that your comrade is alive and well."

Hidan grunted. He didn't care much for Itachi. However, he got slightly more giddy when Nenriki kissed him in her joy. This was noticed by Itachi, but as usual, he didn't care. Suddenly, she pulled away with a thought hitting her.

"Wait a minute! What the fuck happened to Sasori?" Nenriki asked.

"Uh, I'm not really sure." Deidara said. "Maybe the force from him hitting the wall knocked him out of Itachi.

"Wait? What?" Itachi asked.

"We'll explain later, un."

"Ok, I guess that could happen," Hidan said. "but what happened at the end there? I mean, his powers just went all haywire and such, seriously."

"That, I can explain, un." Deidara said. "You see, when Sasori was alive, he had very little emotion, almost to the point where it didn't exist. However, he could never dispel of it entirely, un. When I was first made his partner, we got into an argument about art right away. I went too far and he got really pissed. He tried to attack me, but he went blind with rage and lost control. During that fight, he was so mad that he forgot that he could have easily defeated me if he had just used his puppet chakra strings. Two things defiantly haven't changed about Sasori. He can't fight with emotion, and he is still just as passionate about art as ever, un." Deidara finished.

"Wait a minute." Itachi said, rubbing his temples. "I was possessed by Sasori?"

The others nodded.

"I guess my Sharingan still has room for improvement. Anyway, I think some stuff is coming back to me now. There was a blood everywhere…and…and Kakuzu got hurt. Then there was a dungeon, and Kitsune-"

"My sister? Is she ok? Is she alright? Answer me damnit!" Deidara bent down and started shaking Itachi by the collar of his robes.

"QuIT shAaAKiNG mE!" Itachi said with his voice rising and falling as Deidara shook him.

Deidara dropped Itachi on his back and he landed with a loud thud on his Akatsuki tush. He sat up and rubbed his backside. "I-I think so. I remember something…something…ugh." Itachi groaned and fell back down to the floor.

"Itachi-chan! C'mon dude! What do you remember?" Hidan said.

"Don't push him." Nenriki said softly. "He went through quite an experience. He should really be in bed resting." She knelt down with Hidan and put a hand on Itachi's shoulder. "Now, where is my friend?" She asked softly. "Please, tell us what you can."

"I remember that she was chained up somewhere in a dungeon on a bed. It's all very fuzzy in my head. She started yelling something about getting raped, or something. I don't know." Itachi groaned again and rubbed his temples.

Deidara and Nenriki paled. "What? No! Danna wouldn't do that. He's not that type of guy…ninja…puppet…ghost…thing!" Deidara shouted this while pulling on his hair.

"Well, he did say that he had changed a lot. Haha! That old pervert!" Hidan laughed.

"Itachi! Tell us where Kitsune is right now!" Nenriki screamed in Itachi's ear.

"Ow! Tone it down a bit, will ya? I think I might know how to get back to the dungeon area where she was."

"Ok, good. You can take us there. Let's go!"

"Wait a minute." Damu said. "Look at the clock." Damu pointed a finger to the clock hanging on the wall. "It's almost been a half-an-hour so we should head back to the kitchen first to alert the others and to tell them what we found out so they can help us save Kitsune so she doesn't get raped by the guyninjapuppetghostthing!" Damu didn't breath throughout this beastly run-on sentence, so his voice was very high pitched by the end.

"Sure. What he said." Tobi said. "Sally forth and tally-ho! Off to the kitchen we go!" Tobi dramatically pointed his finger upward and began to march off towards the kitchen. Damu shrugged and followed. Nenriki and Hidan sighed together and Deidara shook his head. Hidan and Deidara bent down to pick up Itachi to help carry him to the kitchen.

EVIL MANIACLE PSYCOTIC CREEPY PEDOPHILE-ISH DUNGEON AREA OF DOOM

Sasori decided instead of just materializing through the wall, he just used the door. He walked down the stairs quickly with his footsteps echoing throughout the large stone room. Kitsune looked up hopefully, expecting to see someone coming to her rescue, but was disappointed to see Sasori angrily stomping down the stairs. She put her head back down and sighed. "So, from your face I can tell that things didn't go your way."

Sasori ignored her and sat down in his throne and crossed his legs. He was rubbing the bridge of his nose and was deep in thought. Why did his powers not work? He sighed and remembered that Deidara knew him too well. He couldn't fight well if emotion was in the way. That's why he had to get rid of it the best he could. Sasori raised his solid hand in front of him and then turned it transparent, and then back to solid. He managed to keep his powers somehow, but that collision with the wall was quite painful. It made him feel like everything on his inside wanted to be on his outside. He needed to cool his jets before he tried to fight again. He didn't know exactly what happened to Itachi, but it seemed as though things were still more or less going as planned. He had kept Itachi conscious throughout the whole ordeal because he thought he might need to use him if the others couldn't find this place. That had been the case, and he was planning to release Itachi soon enough. However, he got sidetracked and even though Itachi had been released, it was not the way he would have planned it.

Sasori leaned back in his chair and rested against the back of it. He would have his revenge. He would make them all pay.

* * *

**OOOOOK chapter 10 is finally done. Sorry it took forever. I was lazy, and then I went on vacation and got even lazier. But I hope you all enjoyed it. I'll try to wrap this story up in about two more chapters.**

**R&R! Adios Home-skillets!**


	11. Possessed Again

Chapter 11-

**Chapter 11- Possessed Again**

**I went on vacation during spring break and finished two chapters! I hardly went outside, and I didn't really get tan, but writing this was more fun!**

**Nothing much else to say, Naruto does not belong to me…or does it? Duh Dun Duuuun!**

**Let's roll:**

* * *

Deidara's group was going as fast as they could towards the kitchen, but they were carrying Itachi, so they had to go slow. It took several minutes, but when they finally got there, the rest of the Akatsuki was waiting for them patiently. They all lifted their heads and stared expectantly at them. When their eyes fell on Itachi, they were all surprised.

"What the hell?" Kakuzu asked. He was still slightly irritated at the fact that he had just recently had his heart ripped out, but hey, it would bother me too.

"Don't worry Kakuzu-san." Tobi said. "Itachi-san's not possessed anymore! Isn't it great?"

"Uhhh, sure. But where's Sasori?" Kakuzu asked.

"We would all like to know what you all have discovered, since our efforts were fruitless." Pein stated.

"Well," Deidara started. "We had a little run-in with Sasori." Konan gasped and the other looked surprised and slightly more interested. "We fought him in our room. Basically, all that came from the fight is that Itachi isn't possessed anymore. Also, Itachi said that he knows where to find Kitsune, un."

"Really? That's so great!" Konan said excitedly.

"Indeed." Pein said, raising his eyebrows. "However, I would like to know Itachi's de-possessing came about."

"Well, when Sasori came into our room he began to fight, un. I made him get pissed; he lost control of his powers. Then he ran into a wall and it knocked Itachi out of him." Deidara finished, blowing the bangs out of his face.

The Leader raised his eyebrow. "Let me get this straight." He began. "Through all of our efforts to fight him, and with all the power the Akatsuki possesses, we could not do anything against that demon." Deidara nodded. "However, in the end, one of the strongest beings on this planted was bested by…running into a wall." He finished.

"It would appear so." Zetsu spoke up.

"**What a dumbass.**"

"Mmmhmm."

"Wow. Just wow." Kisame added.

"That's kind of depressing." Kakuzu said quietly.

Pein sighed and rested his chin against his chest. "Whatever. Itachi-san, can you lead us to where that girl-?"

"Kistune." Konan interrupted.

"Excuse me?" Pein asked.

"Kitsune. Her name is Kitsune."

Pein sighed. "Yes darling. Itachi-san, can you lead us to where _Kitsune_ is?"

"I believe so, Pein-sama."

"Good. Let's get going, then."

Without another word, the all stood up and headed for the badass swinging door of doom. Deidara and Hidan still had to carry Itachi, who simply pointed in the correct direction to go, and the other followed. They took a left, and then a right, then two more lefts, went through several doors before Itachi said to stop.

"Hey, Leader-sama?" Pein nodded in acknowledgement at Tobi's question. "Why did you make the hideout be so big? I mean, we all share rooms anyway, and Tobi doesn't even know what most of these rooms are used for, or if they are even used at all."

"Well, he's certainly not compensating for anything." Konan said sarcastically.

Pein blushed seven shades of red, but said nothing. Instead, he suddenly became very interested at chipping away at his fingernail polish.

"Hehe, nice one Konan-chan." Kisame whispered. This comment was heard by the Leader. He gave Kisame a glare that said 'one more comment like that and I'll have you castrated.' Kisame wilted under the gaze. Konan returned this gaze with one that said 'hurt my new friend and no sex for a month.' Konan wins.

'I think Sasori did this, now." Itachi said. He made a few simple hand seals and pressed his hand up against the blank wall. A door made of stone appeared where his hand was. "This is the entrance."

"There's no handle." Hidan pointed out. "How the hell do we get in if we can't open the damn door?"

"I'm way ahead of you, un." Deidara's hand mouth pushed some clay in his hand with its tongue. His hand closed around it, and in several seconds, opened to produce a little clay bird. He reared his arm back and prepared to throw. "Fore!" He shouted, and threw the bird at the door. Everyone dove out of the way just in time as Deidara yelled 'katsu' and the bird exploded, blowing the door to bits.

When the debris cleared, the hole in the wall revealed a long, narrow stairway leading to a dungeon type area made of stone.

"My my, Dei-chan. You're jutsu has improved greatly." Nenriki commented.

"Uh-huh." He replied.

They all gazed down the narrow stairway and into the dimly lit room. They could barely make out anything in the room because it was so dark.

"I don't see anything. Are you sure this is the right room?" Nenriki asked. Itachi nodded.

"I guess we'll have to go in to find out, un." Deidara said. "I'll go in first." Deidara gulped.

"I'll go next, and Nenriki will follow me." Hidan said, gripping his scythe.

Deidara tentatively stepped forward, as if he expected the stairway to collapse under him any second. The others followed in a single file line, except for Itachi, who wasn't up for the job of fighting a demonic ghost again and stayed behind at the top of the stairs. Once they were all down there, they could fully see the room. There was a large empty throne in the middle made of stone, several large tapestries hanging on the walls, and a stone bed with shackles attached.

"This sounds like the room Itachi described for us, but there's no one here. Maybe they went somewhere else." Kisame suggested.

"Or there is always the possibility that he's just watching us through the walls and is waiting for the opportune moment to strike." Pein said.

"Or that."

"Well, what do we do until then?" Damu asked.

"We wait." Pein said.

And wait they did.

"Hey Kisame-san?"

"Yes, Nenriki-san?"

"Can I touch-?"

"No."

"Ok."

"Hey Kisame-san?"

Kisame sighed. "Yes, Nenriki-san?"

"Are those gills on your face?"

"Yes, yes they are."

"Oh. Kisame-san?"

"What?!"

"Why do you have gills on your face?"

"I need to be able to breath under water for some of my jutsus."

"Oh. But then, how can you breathe on land if you have gills. Shouldn't it just be one or the other?"

"No. My lungs are suited for both land and water."

"Oh. Kisame-san?"

"What the hell is it now?"

"Can I touch your-?"

"No!"

"Ok."

There was silence for several more seconds before Deidara finally lost his patience.

"What the hell is taking so long, un? Danna! Come out with my sister right now! She better be safe and unharmed! UN!"

All of the candles in the room flickered out, leaving the room in complete darkness. There were gasps of surprises and a piercing shriek. Everyone assumed that this was Konan, but luckily for Tobi, it was dark.

Like everyone expected, the wind started to blow and a small tornado formed in the middle of the room. When it disappeared, it revealed Sasori, who was glowing with a ghostly aura. He was the only light in the room, but it illuminated the room like the sun.

"Where's Kitsune?" Nenriki asked with anger in her voice.

_**Oh, her? **_Sasori said. _**She's right here. **_There was a lout pop and smoke appeared near Sasori. When it cleared it showed Kitsune being held by her collar in Sasori's right hand. He then dropped her. He was only about ten feet above the ground, so with her ninja skills, she was able to land on her feet. Unfortunately, since she had been chained up tightly for several hours, her legs were weak. This caused her to lose her balance and trip. She landed hard on the stone floor next to the throne in a crumpled heap. Deidara, Nenriki, and Hidan ran to her side to help her up.

When she was standing again, she dusted herself off and nodded to all of the others. "Hey guys. What's up?"

Deidara sighed with relief. "So, you seem ok, un. You didn't get raped, then?"

"What? No, I didn't get raped! What made you think that?"

Deidara would make Itachi pay later. "Oh, nothing, un."

"Well, I'm fine. How about you guys?"

"We're all fine." Nenriki said. "Itachi's a bit weak from being possessed by Sasori, but he'll be ok. He's upstairs resting."

_**That's enough small talk. Let's get down to business.**_

"Oh yeah, we almost forgot about you." Hidan said. "What the fuck were you waiting for earlier?"

_**I was waiting for the opportune moment to attack you.**_

"Told you so." Pein said childishly.

"Well, we were pretty much sitting ducks from the beginning. What makes now different that thirty seconds ago?" Konan asked.

_**Well,**_ Sasori began, _**I happened to be curious as to why Kisame had gills on his face too.**_

"Oh, now I see." Konan said sarcastically. This was ignored by Sasori.

_**Now that I have lured you all here, we shall fight to the death. I shall have my revenge.**_

"Revenge for what, un?" Deidara asked.

_**For replacing me. I was with the Akatsuki for many years. I risked my life for this organization, and when I died, no one shed a tear. I was tossed aside like a broken toy; like a broken puppet. And I was replaced like one, and with a nitwit like him, no less. **_Sasori pointed an accusing finger at Tobi, who was too scared to do anything. _**You were the one that recommended him. **_He pointed a finger at Zetsu. _**You were the one that hired him.**_ He pointed at Pein. _**And you all, **_he swept his finger across the room, _**accepted him as one of your own just so you could successfully forget me. And finally, you!**_ He glared knifes at Deidara. _**I was you partner, and you forgot me; just like you forget all of you art after it's gone. I don't want my art to be preserved so it can be truly appreciated. I want my art to be preserved so it won't be forgotten, like I was. Nothing in this world worth making should be forgotten so easily. That's why I can't accept your art. You don't respect art, and you never will. **_

"That's not true."

_**What was that?**_

"That's not true, un. I didn't forget you. I acted like I did, but I never could forget, un. I had to accept Tobi for the sake of the Akatsuki, not because I wanted to, un."

Poor Tobi. This was just not his day.

"Tobi didn't want to take your place. Tobi just wanted to help the Akatsuki. He didn't mean to make you sad." Tobi said. Sasori ignored the ramblings of the idiot.

"I can understand why you feel that way, Danna. But you're wrong about those things. I don't forget my art after it's gone. Each creations holds a special place in my heart, no matter how brief its existence, un. I didn't agree with your art, but I accepted it. Why can't you do that for me?"

_**You're lying. You never accepted my art. And you all forgot me because you didn't care enough to remember.**_

"We didn't forget you! We all had to just move on because we had to!"

_**Lies. More lies! ALL LIES! **_Sasori made a triangle with his hands and forced an inhuman amount of chakra in them. They began to glow, and then with a loud blast, a large beam of pure hot chakra blasted an entire wall to bits. The members managed to dodge the main blast, but were hit with small chunks of the wall. _**NO! I will never stop! I want all of you to die! I want you all of you to be forgotten! I want you to feel what I feel!**_

"What about Nenriki, Damu, and Kitsune?" Hidan asked. "They're not part of the Akatsuki. You should let them live!" He refused to lose Nenriki. He, like Sasori, was immoral. Nenriki was not. He wouldn't spent eternity without her. Even though he knew that he would eventually have to say goodbye to her, he would prolong that parting as long as he could. He wouldn't lose her so soon.

_**I'm not stopping with just the Akatsuki, fool! I want the whole world to be gone. I'll kill everyone until the entire planet is in ruins and I'm the only one left!**_

"Danna! Isn't that against your art, un?" Deidara asked desperately.

_**Fuck art! I don't need it anymore! I don't need anything but my immortal self and my power! **_Sasori let out another beam of chakra from his hands, which Deidara narrowly dodged.

"Danna that's crazy! Stop talking like that, un!"

"Damn you, Deidara! I thought you said he couldn't control his powers when he was mad!" Hidan shouted.

"He's not angry now; he's just made with power, un! I think he's finally snapped!"

Sasori didn't listen to Deidara. His eyes fell on Hidan, who had started drawing a seal not to attack, but a desperate attempt to keep Nenriki and himself safe.

_**It's no use. Not even your immortality or Jashin can save you now. I have unlocked all of the secrets to immortality. I created my own, and I can take away yours. **_

Hidan and Nenriki both began praying furiously while gripping their rosaries. Even Jashinists could pray for a miracle every now and then.

_**The immortal will be the first to die. **_Sasori didn't need hand seals to perform jutsus anymore. He was beyond them. _**But a demon can still have fun. **_Sasori smirked as a thick dark ball of smoke appeared in his hand. The ball morphed into the shape of a katana and the smoke turned to a shiny steal. _**Once you're injured badly enough, I will take your immortality away, and then you shall die. **_Sasori gripped the handle tightly. _**Prepare to meet Jashin. **_Sasori swooped down and aimed at Hidan's abdomen.

"Hidan, no!" Nenriki shouted. Her voiced seemed to echo in slow motion as she watched Sasori come down towards Hidan.

Hidan couldn't dodge. He was too fast and he couldn't block a blade. He simply closed his eyes and waited for the pain to come to his torso. He waited, but it didn't come. Keeping his eyes closed, he reached his hand up to his abdomen. He felt warm blood on his fingertips, but no pain. This was certainly strange. Was he dead? Did Jashin decide to take him now? No, that would never happen. He opened his eyes and found that they met Nenriki's.

It was dead silent in the room. Everyone stared in shock at the scene before them. Sasori was still gripping the blade, and the blade was sticking out the other side of Nenriki, who was the only thing stopping the blade from piercing Hidan. The only thing that could be heard was the steady drip of blood on the floor that echoed in the stone room.

Suddenly, Sasori let go of the blade. This was the only thing supporting Nenriki. She collapsed on the floor as a large pool of blood formed around her. Her hand was still dangling from Hidan's. Sasori took several steps back and smirked. He looked quite pleased with himself. Hidan hadn't moved yet. He was still staring right where Nenriki's eyes had just been; staring back, cold and motionless.

Kitsune and Damu were the first to move. They rushed over to their friend's side and knelt down on their knees. They turned her on her back and pulled out the blade and threw it aside. It landed on the floor with a loud clatter. They shook their friend as they called out her name. Deidara came out of shock next. He pulled out a kunai and began cutting parts of his cloak and wrapping them around Nenriki.

"Hidan-san," Deidara said in a panicked voice, "it's going to be much harder to help her with you attached to her." He gripped his kunai harder. "I'm going to need to separate you, un." Hidan said nothing; he just stared forward with a blank look on his face. "I'm taking that as an ok." Deidara slashed at the skin holding their hands together, leaving both of their palms completely skinned. Hidan didn't even feel it. They continued to work on her, but she just lied there still.

_**It's useless to try to save her. She's gone. I can sense it. **_

No one paid any attention to this. They would not give up on her.

Next came Kakuzu. He slowly walked over to his partner and grabbed him gently by the shoulder. Hidan made no motion. He still stared forward in shock. All he saw was Nenriki's dull and dead eyes in front of him. They were burned into his mind. He felt as though maybe, if he stared at them long enough, they would fill up with light again and blink. He would hear her laughter as she said 'just kidding. I got you!' But he felt like if he moved, those eyes would be lost forever. He wanted to move to help. He knew he should be down there helping Nenriki, like her friends were doing, but he couldn't bring himself to see her like that. He still felt her warm blood on his fingertips. Never before had he hated blood so much.

Kakuzu tugged harder on his shoulder. This time, Hidan followed him without any control of where his feet led him. Kakuzu guided him over to the bed and pressed on his shoulder to make him sit. Hidan sat.

"Hidan," Kakuzu began, "just sit here for a while, ok. We'll take care of everything." Hidan may often annoy the crap out of Kakuzu, but they were still partners.

Over by Nenriki, Deidara had slowed his bandaging almost to a stop; Damu had stopped shaking Nenriki and was now just whispering her name while Tobi patted his back. Kitsune was holding Nenriki's hand in her own and was staring down at it with dry eyes.

_**I told you it was no use. She's gone, and she will soon be forgotten. Hahahahaha! **_

"Never."

Sasori's laughter slowed to a chuckle. _**E-excuse me?**_ He said, wiping his eyes.

"She will never be forgotten." Hidan said. He looked up at Sasori with an unreadable expression on his face. He reached for his scythe and slowly got up and started walking towards Sasori. "But you," he continued, "you deserve to be forgotten." Hidan gripped his scythe and prepared to attack Sasori with everything he had.

Konan looked desperately at Pein, her eyes begging him to do something to help. Pein sighed and shrugged his shoulders against Zetsu's.

_**Do you seriously expect to take me by yourself?**_

"No, no he doesn't." This was said not by Hidan, but by Pein. Hidan looked towards Pein in surprise. Konan smiled. She really was the new Leader. She was just a little incognito about it. "If you're going to kill us all anyway, then we might as well go down fighting together."

Tobi began to sing. "We're all in this together! Once we know duh duh something, something stars, AND WE SEE THEM!"

"Tobi!" Kisame shouted. "No High School Musical!"

"Yes Kisame-san. Tobi shall restrain himself."

"Hold on just a minute!" Kakuzu shouted. "Why the hell should we risk our lives?"

"Well," Pein said, "One, because he's going to kill us anyway. It's up to you as to if you want to go out fighting like a shinobi, or like a little genin. Reason number two, because I own your paycheck."

Kakuzu pulled out his kunai. The rest of the member followed and got in their fighting poses.

_**Well, well. **_Sasori said, with one eyebrow raised. _**You've all decided to ban together.**_

Several of them threw their kunai, which passed right through them.

_**See now, here's the problem. I could easily defeat all of you if I so choose. But, what fun is that? No, I think I'll play with all of you for a while. **_Sasori lifted up his left hand up to his face. The tips of his fingers glowed as green glowing spheres came out of the ends. He pointed his fingers at the group of members. Then, he shot five balls out of his hand. One hit Kakuzu square in the chest, one hit Kisame between the eyes, one hit Deidara in the back because he was still tending to Nenriki, one hit Zetsu in the side, and the last one hit Damu in the back of the head. The people who were hit seemed unharmed for several seconds, until their eyes started glowing the same color as the spheres they were hit with. Sasori smirked.

"What the hell was that?" Pein asked.

His question was answered as Kisame threw a well aimed punch right at Konan's head. Konan's head ripped back and she collapsed. She was still hanging on to Kisame's hand and was dangling with her torso above the ground.

"Konan!" Pein shouted and he started to run to her side, but was stopped when Zetsu didn't follow. "Zetsu- oh shit!"

Pein was cut off when Zetsu linked their arms together. Zetsu did a flip and landed on the ground hard with Pein under him. Pein got the wind knocked out of him and couldn't breath under Zetsu's weight. He struggled but Zetsu wouldn't budge. Through his peripheral visions he saw Konan wipe the blood off her face. She stood up and blocked Kisame's next punch and threw one herself in Kisame's stomach that made him double over. She was one tough chick.

Damu and Tobi were pretty equally matched. They were still attached, so it was an awkward fight, but a fierce on all the same. Whenever one threw a punch it was blocked or dodged by the other.

"Damu, stop it, please! Tobi doesn't want to fight you!" Tobi dodged another punch and blocked the next one. "But he will if he has to." Tobi punched Damu square in the nose, which started to bleed. Damu looked up and wiped the blood from his face, and they continued fighting.

Hidan still sat on the stone slab of a bed. He saw nothing, he felt nothing, he didn't even notice when Kakuzu grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room. Hidan didn't bother getting up. He didn't even look at Kakuzu when his fist smashed into his face, or when his kunai stabbed his chest. Hidan saw nothing, he felt nothing, he was nothing.

Kitsune had ended up fighting her brother. She dodged a clay bomb that Deidara had thrown at her and rolled her right to dodge the explosion. She had to do something to stop the fighting somehow. This couldn't go on.

"Deidara, stop it!" She shouted in vain. Deidara couldn't hear her. "Everyone stop fighting back! Just try to dodge and block until we come up with a plan! If we fight we just give Sasori what he wants!" No one heard her over the sounds of the battle. She would have to try again later, but now, she had to deal with her brother. She was fighting, but her thoughts never left her friend. Gone…never forgotten.

Sasori calmly sat in his throne with a smug smirk on his face. He scanned the room and gazed upon the mayhem he had created. He cared not who won or lost the battles, he wanted all of them to die anyway. Sasori chuckled to himself. Soon they would all die. Soon there would be no one left to remember. They would all be gone. He alone would stay.

Throughout all of the mêlée, the fighting, and the bloodshed, no one realized that Nenriki's bloody corpse had disappeared.

* * *

**Cliffhangers make me giggle! Teehee!**


	12. The Loss and Gain of Life

Chapter 12-

**Chapter 12- The Loss and Gain of Life**

**Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto**

**Let's roll:**

The battle raged on deep in the dungeon. The sounds of shouts, punches, and clinking metal from the shinobi were deafening. Konan, Tobi, and Kitsune were relatively unharmed from fighting their opponents, even though Kitsune still refused to fight back. Pein was still being crushed under Zetsu and was gasping for air now and his face was slightly discolored. Hidan was almost unrecognizable since Kakuzu had really beaten the crap out of him. He was covered in blood from head to toe and had several broken bones. He cared not. He thought that maybe if he was hurt badly enough, he would be able to die. His soul would leave this earth and he could see Nenriki again. It would be as if her death were a dream…no, a nightmare. He could hope, but he would never truly believe it could happen. His soul wasn't bound to this earth by a human body, weak and easily broken. His god kept him tethered to the world, and he would not set his soul free.

Sasori still sat in his throne like the God he would soon become. He was too busy enjoying the bloodshed to notice that a bloody puddle was all that was left of Nenriki.

UPSTAIRS

Itachi had been watching the battle with interest. He was peeking around the door frame with his body still lying on the ground. He could now more or less see the room that Sasori had illuminated it. But since he had poor vision, he just heard it and could pretty much tell what was going on. He was too weak to fight himself, but when he saw the supposedly dead girl in the middle of the room start to twitch, he supposed he could manage to bring her up to safety unnoticed. Itachi had snuck down to the dungeon and was ignored due to all of the fighting and his crazy ninjistical skill. He may have been weak, but he was still Uchiha Itachi. He had gently placed her body on the carpet floor and continued to watch the fight progress.

Nenriki's POV in third person

Nenriki slowly opened her eyes to complete darkness. She wondered if she had gone blind, but waved her hand in front of her face and saw it clearly. She wasn't blind. The next thing she noticed was that she was floating. Waving her arms and legs, she felt nothing solid to stand on. She thought about how she had gotten here. There was Sasori, there was a katana, and there was Hidan…Hidan. She remembered jumping in front of him to stop him from being stabbed. She didn't know why she did it, since she knew he would easily survive it, but Nenriki couldn't stand the thought of seeing Hidan hurt by someone other that his own hand during rituals. The third thing she noticed was that when she went to feel where the wound had been, there was nothing. No blood, no tissue, and no pain. Nenriki lifted up her shirt to find that her skin was as smooth as it always had been. She didn't know where she was, but at least she wasn't injured anymore.

"Hello?" She called out. "Is anyone there? I don't really know where I am. Am I dead? I would really appreciate some answers!"

Suddenly, as if to respond to her cries, a large white light appeared in the darkness. Nenriki couldn't decide if it was close to her, or really big and far away like the sun since there was nothing to compare it to. When the light disappeared, it revealed a man that was several meters away from her. The man was wearing a long blood red robe and had no shoes, since he was floating like her. His silver, wavy hair was long and flowed around his face like water. His face was so fine, he almost looked like a woman, and his pink eyes looked much like her own. The most unique thing about this man was that from his back sprouted two black feathery angel wings.

"Who are you?" She asked, a hint of fear in her voice. However, something about the stranger's warm and handsome face made her instantly trust him.

"I am a messenger from Jashin. He had promoted me to sainthood many years ago, and I am one of his most trusted advisors. I posses no name in this realm, but for now, you may call me Aiden."

"Aiden? Isn't that the name of an-?"

"Emo rock band on earth, yes. But it was my name when I was human long ago."

"Oh, ok then. Aiden, what am I doing here? What does Jashin-sama want with me?"

"Nenriki-chan," Aiden moved and put his hand on her shoulder, "Jashin-sama has decided to give you something special." He then moved his hand down and put it over her heart. She tilted her head in confusion, but Aiden simply smiled reassuringly. She looked down as his palm pressed against her chest and it began to glow red. She didn't feel much. Her chest got a bit warmer and it started to tingle a bit. "Jashin-sama has granted you the gift," Aiden removed his hand and floated back several feet, "of immortality."

Nenriki simply stared at Aiden in shock. It was almost a minute before she could ask, "I-I'm immoral, now?" She choked out.

"Yes, yes you are. Being immortal is only given to those who truly deserve it. You are a dedicated Jashinist. Your new love, Hidan-kun, I remember giving him his immortality many years ago. He was so excited at first that Jashin-sama had given him such a great gift. However even though we worship him, Jashin-sama is usually not merciful. He is fair, but not merciful. Hidan-kun soon realized that immortality is a curse. To be destined to never die, to still be alive when all other lives are gone and the worlds turns to ash, is much worse than death. Jashin-sama gives immortality to his followers just so they can become more useful to him. They can perform more advanced rituals, and make more sacrifices. We should all be glad to serve our god, but every religion has its sacrifices." Aiden was silent for a moment and stared back at Nenriki. "Immortality is a true hell," He whispered softly, "unless you have someone to spend it with. Now, it's up to you to decide whether this is a gift or a curse, Nenriki-chan."

Aiden had said it all, and she had nothing left to say. She understood what had been given to her. As to whether it was a curse or a gift…well, at the thought of spending eternity with Hidan, the answer was quite obvious. She could see her friends again, and she would have all the time in the world to spend with Hidan. Now, she knew she would have to say good-bye to her friends eventually, but she would always have Hidan. Not to mention, she wouldn't have to be careful not to hit any major organs during rituals. She smiled, because she had just been given one of the best gifts she'd ever gotten, and it was from her god, Jashin-sama.

Aiden smiled back. "Who knows? Maybe eventually Jashin-sama will make you two saints someday too, and you won't have to suffer the world alone. I see great potential, in both of you. Oh, and one more thing, don't listen to anything Sasori says. He did meet Jashin, but Jashin could beat the wood pulp out of that puppet. He chooses not to intervene on earth except when he has to, like now." Aiden reached in the pocket of his robes and pulled out a tiny violet stone. He handed it to Nenriki. It fit perfectly in the palm of her hand. "Here, you can use this to stop him, if you need to. It's not often that we give these away, so don't waste it. Also, the puppet's crazy with power. He has no such power to strip you of your immortality. I wish both of you the best of luck in whatever you so choose to do. Hopefully we shall see each other again soon." Without another word, Aiden disappeared in a great ball of light and the darkness slowly faded away.

Nenriki awoke and slowly opened her eyes. She found herself to be staring at the ceiling of the Akatsuki hideout. She rolled her head to her left to find Itachi sitting by the door and staring down the staircase.

"Itachi?" Itachi didn't bother to look at her.

"Oh, I see you're finally waking up. I don't know what you did, but your wound is completely healed up." Itachi kept his voice flat. He seemed very interested at what was going on down those stairs.

Nenriki sat up and lifted her shirt up past her stomach. Itachi was right. Her shirt and skin were covered in blood, but there was no wound under it. Also, the skin on her palm was tight and pink for reasons unknown to her, but even that was returning to its normal color. Too much was on her mind to realize that she wasn't connected to Hidan anymore.

Itachi was still staring down the stairs, and Nenriki realized that that was where the fight between Sasori and the others were going on. She crawled over next to Itachi and looked with him. The sight she saw made her breath catch in her throat. The Akatsuki members and her friends were fighting each other as Sasori sat and watched.

"What the fuck is going on down there?"

"Well," Itachi explained, "Sasori hit some of them with these weird green balls, and then they just stared fighting each other. I can only imagine that they are somewhat possessed like I was." Itachi said matter-of-factly.

"Why are you just sitting here doing nothing? Shouldn't you be helping them or something?"

"I'm too weak to fight."

"You weren't weak enough to bring me up here! I'm assuming that was you that did that by the way." Itachi nodded.

"That didn't require much physical motion. I have plenty of chakra, but by body is still weak."

"Well, use some of that chakra to help them! How can you just sit here and watch them beat the crap out of each other?"

Itachi shrugged his shoulders. "I murdered my entire family and clan before I hit puberty, so watching people I hardly consider my friends fight isn't very hard for me." Itachi kept his voice toneless. Nenriki stared at him in shock. She wasn't an exceptionally caring person to strangers, and she knew that she could be bitchy to Damu, but she would do anything to help her friends. They were all she had.

Nenriki peered down again at the fighting again. Damu was fighting Tobi, Kistune was fighting her brother, Konan was fighting the shark nin, Kisame, and Pein being crushed by Zetsu. Sasori was just sitting there looking amused. Where were Hidan and that Kakuzu fellow? It would only make sense that they would fight each other, since they were the only two left. Nenriki caught sight of a silver head, and was relived, that is, until she saw the rest of him. Hidan was literally covered in head to toe in his own blood. One of his arms was mangled and his thigh bone was jutting out of his skin. It wasn't even so much the wounds he had, it was the fact that he was just _letting_ that stuff happen. Hidan made no effort to fight back or even defend himself. She stared at the scene for several more minutes before she couldn't take any more of it.

"What the hell is he doing to himself?" She screamed at Itachi.

Itachi sighed. "Well," he said slowly, "I can only imagine he's lost the will to live after he saw you die. You and all you friends were pretty broken up about it. I don't know why, though. I don't see what all the fuss is about, I mean, you just died."

Nenriki decided to ignore this comment. "Wait, so, they all still think I'm dead, and that's the reason why Hidan isn't doing anything, because he just doesn't care anymore?"

Itachi merely nodded.

"Well then I have to go tell them that I'm not dead and-!" Nenriki was about to jump down the stairs when Itachi grabbed the back of her blood-stained shirt. She turned around and opened her mouth to yell at him but he spoke first.

"If you really want to help them," Itachi sighed, "then it might be better if you use the element of surprise to catch Sasori off-guard."

"Itachi, why are you helping me?" Nenriki asked skeptically.

Itachi sighed. "I have nothing better to do. And besides, Kisame is my partner. Also, if Sasori destroys the earth, then what's the point of ruling it? He's just more competition for a genius like me."

"Oh Itachi! You do care for people, I knew it!" Nenriki gave him a hug. Itachi remained emotionless.

"I don't care. I just changed my mind. Can't a guy change his mind? I thought we were in America."

"Itachi," Nenriki said, pulling away, "last time I checked, we were in Japan."

"Ok, you win. I can't read maps well. I'm going blind, leave me alone!"

Nenriki laughed, despite the situation. She didn't mind this Itachi fellow. "It doesn't matter. But, are you sure you are strong enough to fight."

Itachi scoffed at this comment. "I may not heal as quickly as the man with five hearts, but I'm still an Uchiha." Itachi had his pride.

"Ok, so then what do we do now?"

"Well, we need a plan."

Nenriki reached in her pocket and felt her fingertips brush a small stone. It was the stone that Aiden had given her. "Don't worry." Nenriki smirked devilishly. "I know what to do."

BACK DOWNSTAIRS

The leader had miraculously freed himself from underneath Zetsu, and was gasping for breath. They were now trying to fight back to back, but it was very awkward. Pein managed to slam Zetsu against the stone wall hard, but that was about it. Tobi and Damu hadn't gotten very far, but Konan managed to punch Kisame in the crotch. Girl power. Most of them didn't do ninjutsu because their possessed bodies didn't know how, or their hands were tied, or their other five bodies were in another village far away. Or they were just checked out mentally due to depression. They all just stuck to taijutsu.

Hidan was still making no effort to fight back, or even move. Kakuzu just kept pounding away at him. Hidan lay sprawled out on the ground, and completely covered with blood. He merely glanced up at Kakuzu who was cracking his knuckles. He was readying himself to throw a beastly strong punch at his face, and Hidan just looked at him with a blurry gaze. Kakuzu swung his fist and he didn't care. Hidan didn't feel the pain, and wondered if he had broken his brain. He lazily looked and Kakuzu, and saw something that nearly made him die for real. Nenriki was grasping Kakuzu's fist and she was smiling down at him. She turned towards Kakuzu and punched him hard in the stomach. While he was bent over in pain, she scored a kick over his head. He quickly recovered and kicked Nenriki hard in the stomach. She then disappeared into a ball of smoke.

_A shadow clone. This must be someone's sick idea of a joke. Nenriki's dead. I will never see her again. _

"Hidan! Get off your damn ass and fight, dammit! Or at least defend yourself! C'mon!"

_Now I'm hearing voices. Fuck this. Fuck life. _Hidan let out a depressed emo sigh on the inside.

Itachi had created several shadow clones and was trying to hold back the possessed members. No one really knew what was going on, but they just let Itachi help them without asking any question. Nenriki had ordered him not to hurt them, but he was getting increasingly frustrated. He wanted to hurt someone. He was not content to just holding people back, even if he usually never showed it.

"N-Nenriki?" Kitsune had stopped dead in the process of fighting her brother with Itachi when she saw a flash of her friend's silver hair. She stared blankly at her for a minute, but was snapped out of shock when Deidara punched her in the face. She landed hard on the ground. She sat up and spat out a glob of blood from a tooth that had been knocked out. "You're getting a supreme weggie for that later, Dei!"

"Nenriki-chan?! Tobi thought you were dead! Damu! Damu! Look Nenriki-chan's alive!"

Damu stopped fighting Tobi for a second to look at Nenriki. Suddenly, the bright green light left his eyes and he stumbled.

_**What is this? Why do you stop? I am your master now, and I command you to kill him!**_

Damu paid no attention to Sasori's screams and commands as he stumbled over to Nenriki. He stood before her for a moment before he embraced her in a hug that could shatter bones. Nenriki stood there shocked for a second before she smiled and chuckled softly.

"Nice to see you too, Damu. Ya know, you're my favorite idiot! You're not so ba-!" Nenriki was cut off because she felt a piercing pain in her back. She quickly pulled away from her friend and reached up her back. She felt a kunai embedded near her spine and warm blood spread down her back. She pulled it out and looked at Damu in surprise. His eyes were once again glowing green.

_**Haha! I tricked you! I tricked you! I made him do that! Foolish mortal, it will take more than love to defeat me. I don't know how you're still alive, but I will have no story book ending.**_

"Nenriki, no!" Kitsune was confused, but she didn't want to see her closest friend die _again_. It was too much.

"Hehe." Nenriki smirked and stepped toward Sasori. "I know it takes more that that than to defeat an immortal. Damu," Nenriki spoke to him while still keeping focus on Sasori, "even though I'm now immortal, that still hurt. You'll pay for that later."

_**What do you mean immortal? You can't be immortal.**_

"False."

_**I'm the only true immortal in this room!**_

"False."

_**You have nothing that you can use against me! I am unstoppable!**_

"False."

_**BITCH! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! YOU'RE CRAZY!**_

"Fa- half false."

_**What the hell are you talking abou-? **_Sasori's crazy rant was cut short by the sound of bones breaking. He looked down and saw a hand sticking out from the front of his chest. The hand clutched a violet stone, the same color of the eyes of that damn girl. He slowly twisted his head around and with wide eyes in shock; they fell upon the same girl that was just before him. He whipped his head back around to see her waving and smiling. The one in front of him couldn't be a shadow clone, since she hadn't disappeared when she was stabbed. The hole in his chest started to burn. He glanced down and saw that the stone was giving off an extremely bright glow that burned his eyes. She must be channeling her chakra through it. He had felt this power before…_**Jashin**_. He murmured.

"That's right. You're his bitch now." Nenriki used her shadow clone and pushed as much of her chakra as she could through the now hot stone. Sasori screamed in pain as it began to burn his solid flesh. The stone seemed to be sucking away his power, and Nenriki felt stronger with every passing second. It's as if the power was being given back to Nenriki. She then used this power and forced it back through this stone. Sasori was almost being destroyed by his own power. Suddenly, the others eyes were returned to normal as the demon power left their bodies. Shaking their heads to clear their minds, they suddenly became aware of the injuries they had sustained during the battle. Most of them just winced and shook off the pain, but Kisame screamed, went cross-eyed, and started rolling around on the floor with Konan, grabbing his crotch in pain. Zetsu was apologizing furiously to the leader, who was being strangled by Zetsu's plant parts when he came to. Itachi released his shadow clone technique and stood there casually as if nothing exciting was going on.

Sasori let out another scream as more of his bones splintered. All eyes were upon him as he fell to his knees. Nenriki withdrew the stone and Sasori started panting heavily. He looked up and scanned the room, his eyes falling on each of the people. His eyes stopped at the real Nenriki.

_**You…you have met with Jashin. You have beaten me… and now you are immortal. There is nothing left for me. I gave a small reward to that pink-haired bitch the last time I died…so I guess it's only fair that I do it again. Girl,**_ he turned towards Kitsune. _**I was there. I saw you. The last ingredient you added…it was petals from a sakura tree. Hopefully… that will help you somehow. Tobi-kun, **_he turned to the orange masked man. _**I…I tried to torture you at first by stealing from the others…and scaring you, but now I see…I see that you care about your friends. Take..take…care of…Deidara.**_

The light faded from Sasori's eyes as he fell to the ground in a motionless heap. No one spoke. No one made a sound. After about a minute of silence, Deidara ventured forward. He bent down and grabbed his Danna's hand.

"Woah! It's made of wood, un! It's like he's back in his original body."

"But is he still alive?" Pein asked.

"I don't know, un. It's not like he ever had a pulse to begin with. The only thing we can do now is wait."

"Until then…NENRIKI, HOW THE HELL ARE YOU STILL ALIVE? YOU SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF US WE SAW YOU DIE YOU WERE BLEEDING ON THE GROUND AND OHMYGODHIDAN!" Kitsune almost died from the sheer force that her own voice carried because it almost, like, exploded her brain and the entirety of her existence. Nenriki then just remembered Hidan was probably bleeding on the floor somewhere. She looked around frantically until she saw him. He was barely conscious and was soaked with blood on the floor. She ran over to him and bent down by his side. She cradled his head in her arms.

"Hidan? Hidan! Can you hear me, baby? C'mon!"

Hidan's eyes flickered open and focused on Nenriki. "Sha-shadow clone?"

"No, Hidan. It's really me. I died, but Jashin gave me immortality. I'm alive. I'm really, really, here. Please believe me. I'll never leave you again." Nenriki almost never cried, but her eyes began to burn and a large lump formed in her throat.

"I-I can't believe you. It's…it's just a trick. Can't get hurt…can't get hurt again." Hidan's head lolled from side to side because he was so weak from his injuries and blood loss.

"No, you have to believe me. Hidan, I met with Aiden. He gave me immortality, and the stone I used to defeat Sasori."

"Aiden? You..you saw Aiden?"

"Yes, babe. I promise, I'm really immortal, I'm really here, and I will never leave you again." Tears rolled openly down Nenriki's face now because she was so overcome with emotion. "Hidan," Nenriki brushed the stray hair out of Hidan's face and wiped his face clean of blood, "I love you."

"Nenriki," he said in barely more than a whisper, "I love you too." Hidan lifted his head up and buried it Nenriki's neck. He was shaking from his sobs. Tears rolled down his face and soaked Nenriki's shirt. No one ever made fun of him for crying, not even Kakuzu.

"Well, this is quite the little love fest we have going on here." Everyone's heads ripped around to the source of the voice. There, standing in the middle of room, was Sasori in his woody body and all. "What the hell are all of you staring at? Wait, how did I even get here? All I remember is blacking out after I fought with that pink-haired bitch."

All were stunned into shock. They all stared at him with mouth agape.

"What? Do I have something on my face?" Sasori wiped his face and inspected his body. "Aww man! Look at this hole in my chest! Lucky it didn't hit my heart. That's going to take some major fixing." Sasori looked around at the members. "Oh, hello there. I don't believe we've met." He looked at Damu, Kitsune, and a still tear soaked Nenriki. "I'm Sasori, who're you?" He walked over to them and held out his wooden hand. Damu tentatively shook it, with his eye twitched. Sasori was unusually oblivious to all the tension in the room.

"I-I'm Damu, I guess. This is N-Nenriki, and th-this is Kitsune, Deidara's sister."

"A, brat! I never knew you had a sister! You look just like her. Oh, my dear!" He noticed the tears on Nenriki's cheeks, although they were slowing. "What's wrong? Did something happen? Who made you upset?" this was one of the more ironic moments of their lives, since it was mostly Sasori who caused this whole fiasco.

"Uh, um, no one. I'm fine, really." Nenriki wiped her face dry.

"Splendid! I must have really been out from that fight with Bitchy MacBitchster Queen of the Pink-Haired Bitches. I'm going to my room to do some repairs now." Sasori walked upstairs to his room without another word.

Everyone was silent for a full minute.

More silence.

Oh man, this was a really long, awkward silence. You don't even understand.

"What the hell just happened?" Kisame asked loudly, making everyone jump.

"I-I don't think Sasori remembers anything that happened after he died. Maybe that stone Aiden gave me just sucked the evil immortal part out of him." Nenriki suggested.

"Who's Aiden?"

"Oh, no one that concerns you, Damu."

"Ok."

"Well what now, Sir?" Zetsu asked.

"Well," He started, "I suppose we could just pretend like nothing ever happened. Everyone ok with that?" Pein asked hopefully.

Everyone nodded and mumbled agreements. Let's just pretend that Sasori didn't come back to life as an immortal, try to seek revenge on the Akatsuki for replacing him by killing them all, causing overall turmoil and chaos in the hideout and then come back to life again as his former self. It's like it didn't even happen.

They all trudged up the staircase. Hidan had already begun to heal and only needed a little support from Nenriki to walk. They were all headed towards the kitchen when a piercing shriek reached all of their ears.

"Who the _hell_ has been touching my shit?!" Sasori's voice could be heard all across the hideout.

"Uhhh, I guess we'll have to explain that Tobi now inhabits Sasori's side of the room, and they are both still partners with Deidara." Pein stated.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Tobi interrupted. "Sasori's last words, he said to take care of Deidara-sempai! Sempai! Sasori really does like you and care for you. Aww, that's so sweet." He then embraced his sempai in an adorable squishy bear hug.

"Sh-shut up, Tobi." Deidara half-heartedly mumbled this, but under his hair, a small smile appeared.

"Ahem," The Leader said, "Speaking of Sasori's last words, I believe that you have a solution to finish. After all, Damu, Tobi, Kisame, Konan, Zetsu, and I are still stuck together. Better get right on that." He said with a calm, friendly smile.

"I'll get right on that Leader-sama, but there's one thing I have to take care of first."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

"Well," She began, with a mischievous smile on her face, "Ready Nenriki?"

"Ready, Kitsune!"

"Ok, one, two THREE!"

The Kitsune reached down Deidara's pants and Nenriki reached down Damu's. They both grabbed their undergarments and yanked up with the full force of a shinobi, giving the pair the most intense weggies that they had ever received. Deidara and Damu screamed in pain.

"That's for punching me in the face!"

"And that's for stabbing me in the back! Literally!"

The others giggled and laughed. "Oh my god, Dei-chan wears whitey-tidies!" Hidan screamed, making Deidara blushed.

Nenriki simply stared at the pair of briefs clutched in her hands. "Damu?"

"Yes, Nenriki?" Damu said, still dangling inches above the ground by his underwear.

"Are those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?"

Damu gave a shifty gaze. "NO!" he screamed and ran off giggling with Tobi somewhere.

They all laughed. Kitsune quickly headed back to her room to finish the solution. It worked perfectly the first time. Unfortunately, somehow she had managed to throw in an extra ingredient. It still worked fine, but there was a nasty little side effect. The people it was used on seemed to act like animals for several hours. It was really weird. Kisame spent the entire afternoon acting not like a shark, but jumping through hoops and squeaking like a dolphin. Zetsu climbed up trees and chattered like a chipmunk, claiming that he lost his nuts, and Konan was hissing like a snake and tried to worm her way through the grass. The leader was a lion, and tried to bite Tobi, who was prancing around the hideout like a gazelle. Damu showed his true colors by acting like a rock. He just sat there in a ball and pretended to roll down a hill, and then Kisame tried to bounce him on his nose like a ball. It did not turn out well.

Once the effects wore off, Konan convinced Pein that the hideout was more interesting with the newcomers around, and that they should be allowed to stay with them. He somehow agreed to this. He was probably just scared of Konan, though.

Sasori got used to the fact that he now had two partners, and he never did found out that he had almost killed the entire Akatsuki. That would have been really awkward. Also, Nenriki and Hidan stayed together, deeply in love. They were inseparable. Kakuzu could barely stomach one Jashinist, but when two were together, he would have given his money away to shut them up from babbling on about Jashin, and bloody rituals, and how they would spend their next thousand or so years together. They knew this bothered him, so they just made sure to start talking about Jashinism whenever he walked into the room. It caused them great enjoyment. They were truly made for each other.

All lived happily ever after, ya know, until the next demonic spirit/shinobi/Sasuke/the writer of Naruto tried to stop the Akatsuki. They never prevailed. The manga is lying to all of you. Don't believe it. It's all genjustsu. It's like it didn't even happen! Bwahahaha! Ahem, any whose. The stories never stopped, because it's always interesting when you're with the Akatsuki.

**Aaaaaannd…DONE! Finally. Uhg, this took forever. I kinda like the ending, but I'm probably going to continue this in another story with another plot if I get ideas. Send me comments for ideas you all have! This was my first fanfic. It was so much fun to write, but it's finally done! For those of you who liked this story, I'll probably start writing some other fanfics with these OC's. I've grown rather attached to them. I will see all yous later! PEACE OUT! **


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